Hammer deleting visgroups

Recently I've found hammer to be deleting my visgroups when I close a
map and reopen it. Anybody who uses visgroups extensively will realise
how much effort can be put into making useful visgroups, so to have
them all deleted every time you close the map is a massive problem. Any
objects that were in a hidden visgroup show up in the "check for
problems" list so I can reclaim them, but its another annoyance on top
of having to rebuild all my visgroups each time. It DOES remember the auto visgroups, but thats not really much consolation.

Another problem related to visgroups is that when I mass select a set
of brushes by using the "replace texture" tool (use the "do not replace
textures (select brushes)" option), bringing up the object properties
box to add them to a visgroup doesn't let me change visgroup properties
at all. Combined with the first problem I mentioned, this means adding
my clips and hints to unique visgroups each time I load the map
involves going round and selecting each one individually - a long and
freaking awkward process.

Does anybody else have these problems? I've searched here and at the
VERC, but there seems to be no mention of them :sad: Does hammer just not
WANT me to be productive?!

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I've never heard of such a problem either... maybe some of your SDK
files are just bugged for some reason? Tried validating the files
already?

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

By validating you mean doing the "Refresh SDK content" option? If so, I
gave it a shot but it hasn't fixed my problems :sad: I actually have a
crap load of hammer problems at the moment - ones I didn't have last
time I used hammer (which was at least a month ago).

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

i've not noticed any problem with visgroups, probably because i don't use them very much, but hammer seems to have been updated with a few bugs recently. there's the inverted blends, the crash when hammer and hl are open together, your visgroup problem and god knows what else. apparently they're "working on it".

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i eat paint

Another problem related to visgroups is that when I mass select a set
of brushes by using the "replace texture" tool (use the "do not replace
textures (select brushes)" option), bringing up the object properties
box to add them to a visgroup doesn't let me change visgroup properties
at all. Combined with the first problem I mentioned, this means adding
my clips and hints to unique visgroups each time I load the map
involves going round and selecting each one individually - a long and
freaking awkward process.

Ive had this problem before, I thinks its partially due to the fact
that there is 1 brush with the texture on it that is either an entity
(func_detail), or already part of another vis group (you cloned a hint
brush int he hint brush visgroup and applied the clip texture to it). I have no actually pattern that I
have recognized yet reno, but I experience it also.

On the other problem:

Do you get a Little "messages" text window saying things like:

Opened C:\ProgramFiles\valve\Steam\Steamapps\Omegaslayer4777@hotmail.com\sourcesdk_content\hl2mp\mapsrc\dm_backup.vmf

'solid with 6 faces', child of 'func_clip_vphysics' , was in visgrops illegally. Removed from visgroups

This happens after I open up multiple maps in one hammer to copy over
model configurations. I believe that when it is removed, it gets
deleted, but it only happens on custom visgroups (like your problem).
Try limiting one map per one hammer <--- what I mean by that is have
separate hammer programs running when you want to copy stuff from one
map to another.

I think the problem here is hammer loses track of what vis groups are turned off. In my case the physics clips were deleted.

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Posting And You

I had this problem before as well. I think I ended up copying and
pasting with "ignore groups" into a new .VMF; wish I could help more. :\

Are you using an excessive amount of visgroups ?

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

Nope, I only had two custom vis groups in the map that was causing problems.

Thankfully, the problem is solved. As CJ suggested, copying and pasting
into a new VMF worked. I had already tried saving as a new file, but
not copying and pasting the actual map contents into a new one :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net