With the auto-visgroups feature working nicely since recent SDK updates its become less of an essential skill to create and organise your own visgroups, but its still something that I pride myself on and spend a lot of time perfecting. Well designed visgroups can make a level far simpler and more pleasurable to work on, so I feel its worth the effort.

How do you guys use the visgroups feature? Anybody completely ignore it (I did until I started HL2 mapping...wish I hadn't!)? Anybody think they go OTT with it? Do you use it for performance reasons (rendering the entire map while editing can be a hog on lesser systems!), to help neaten the views, or perhaps to group similar objects for mass selection? Or perhaps its to compile your level in sections for testing? Do you religiously visgroup as you go, or end up going through and doing it in clumps? Any standard setups you use in all your projects? What are your thoughts on the auto-visgroups as they are currently implemented?

I'm sure some people use some powerful visgroup setups, and those who don't might find themselves learning some useful new approaches to improve their productivity and the neatness of their levels.

Cmon guys, lets talk about mapping for once!

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

I kind of use visgroups as a "layer mask" of sorts, to save selections of brushes / items. It comes in quite handy when you have a room made of lots of brushes but the selection box is too sloppy. Occasionally I use them for performance reasons, but I rarely get that far in my map projects. :smile:

I've never really thought they were terribly important though, even less so since there's those auto visgroups to hide triggers and stuff. I prefer to concentrate on flying around in the 3D view for 30 minute intervals while making trivial adjustments around the level.

I've never used visgroups, though I've often wondered how useful they are. Is it essentially like a layers/grouping panel similar to Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop? If so I could see how they would be useful for keeping track of grouped entities and brushes, a feature I use regularly.

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

I used groups and stuff for related areas, but they aren't themed or anything and not global to the whole map. I mostly just grouped up say staircases once they were "finished" so I could hide them at-will.

I think you're talking about this, it's been a while haha.

I also group up some other non-essentials like frames/doors, sky-bits and the like. I personally don't like the auto-ness in same ways because I liked how the old Hammer behaved and changed my habits around that. Same with how the texture applying tool won't let you move the camera around and continue ctrl-clicking faces. So I end up wasting a lot of time and cursing at the thing.

I primarily vis group clip brushes. Considering that even an HL1 map can have hundreds of them, I think it's pretty essential to get them out of my view.

Apart from that, if I think the map is starting to get a bit cluttered up, and I'm simply getting confused by looking at a bajillion multi colored lines, I vis group some off and make things easier on my eyes.

Ps:

Oh, we're showing off now, are we? Two can play at that game.

Cheater! Turn your visgroup colors on :razz:

I visgroup for the same reasons as G.Ballblue. If I find parts of my map are getting too cluttered for me to accurately or even easily vertex manipulate certain brushes from the side view, for example, I'll vis-group certain areas of the map to make things simpler and easier.

The skybox is something I find myself hiding as soon as its done, so that gets its own visgroup.

Recently, I discovered the wonders of cordon compiles, which I think is somewhat related to visgroups in the sense that they simplify the mapping process.

I don't bother doing it for that reason since mine are often way too "cluttered" that I would never vert manipulate by clicking in the 2D views, which eliminates my need to group them since I don't get distracted by it.

I actually clear out my visgroups every once in a while since it gets gobbed up sometimes.

this is general banter.. come on. threads need to be posted in the correct format.

"Recently Vis'd"?

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

ohh its brought:



These vis groups were made before the auto vis goups were made.

I tend to group area_portals and complated sets of brush work (some doors).

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Posting And You

Example of Belfort, this is with using a lot of visgroups for clip, frames, stairs, etc. But you can see how layered it is.

I think the use of visgroups varies on a map by map basis, but they are something I'd always use to some extent now. With working on The Ship, in which maps are always broken down into several decks, I use the following setup...

Deck A
- Ceilings
- Furniture (props)
- Overlays
- Functionality (ship specific entities, NPCs, etc...)
- Technical (lights, ropes, sprites, sounds, etc...)
- Optimisation (area portals, hint brushes, etc...)
Deck B
- Ceilings
- Furniture

...and so on. With that setup I can quickly hide entire decks, hide the ceilings from the deck I'm working on to get a nice overview of the layout, get rid of all the entity clutter to get a better feel for the appearance of areas, and likewise with the optimisation clutter. I tend to keep the skybox brushes and 3D skybox all grouped together in a skybox visgroup.

Together with auto visgroups I find this a very powerful setup. For example, if I want to focus on optimising Deck A, I can hide all other decks, hide deck A's ceilings, hide all entities (including func_details) with the auto-visgroup, and then have a nice clean overview of the solid BSP hull together with all my hint brushes and/or area portals. To anybody who doesn't yet use visgroups I'd strongly recommend you give them a shot. It's so much easier and more efficient to work on a level when the only lines cluttering the views are the lines you need to see in order to do what you are doing :smile:

Same with how the texture applying tool won't let you move the camera around and continue ctrl-clicking faces. So I end up wasting a lot of time and cursing at the thing.

I can still fly around the 3D view when in the texture application tool, though there does seem to be an occasional bug in recent SDK updates that stops it working. If it happens try moving the texture application window entirely OFF the 3D view, and then click somewhere in the 3D view - tends to re-enable camera movement for me.

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

boy, we need more threads like this.

I like the new auto-visgroups eespecially for their "tools brush" feature.

I must admit I'm not a loyal visgrouper, though. I find it annoying that even hiding a sinlge brush forces you to make a visgorup out of it, even if you know you'lll never need it again.

Reno's method sounds interesting. The "ceilings" part reminds me of playing X-com for a reason.

I never used Visgroups for quite a while and then "learned" them a short ways into residential and have used them a LOT since.

I find the auto groups useful enough for workability purposes (also I use cordon a lot to cut off sections of the map that I want to work on so there's nothing in the way). What I usually use Visgroups for are simply hiding objects. Remember that huge wooden ramp in the early Residential screenshots? I've still got it, hidden in a visgroup. I usually use them as an alternative to deleting stuff when I think I might want to use it or build on it later and not have to go back and copy+paste from an older build.

I'm more of an occasional user when it comes down to visgroups. Some
maps need 'em some don't. I use them when the map has lots of vertical
details or floors over each other. px_bridges is one of these maps
where using visgroups was a abit of an nescessity. :smile: px_sithania was a
lot more complex map, but we don't spend too much thinking of the dead
now, do we. :wink:

The little I've used Hammer 4.0... Well I like the autovisgrouping, but
I still hate the self-inverting displacement maps more...

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

I mainly use visgroups to hide entire sections of the map so I can focus on what I'm working on, in addition to some of the prop/clip/trigger hiding. For example I'll just select all of T spawn and put it all in it's own visgroup, and do the same for every part of the map I consider a seperate area, then when I'm working on that I'll have everything in the map hidden except T spawn and maybe a few adjacent areas. I don't think I've ever used auto-visgroups though.

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o

Being poor, I was one of those mappers who played HL1 on a machine barely able to cope. I learned visgrouping as a necessity, not as a luxury.

I had a proper machine by HL2, and still retained the desire for visgroups...

It is one of the best features in hammer, as long as you remember that things are hidden at times and you do not try to fill that space again, you'll do fine. :heee:

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The best things in life, aren't things.