Disappearing brushes

[Springheel]

We've all had small brushes that disappear when running the game, and instead show a gap to the void. In the past, snapping them to grid has always fixed them for me. Lately, I've been having really large brushes--entire walls--doing this, and snapping them to grid doesn't have any affect. One wall was fine until I added a fake door to it, and then it became a void; snapping it and splitting it into multiple brushes has had no effect.

 

Are there any other tricks for fixing these things? They're sealing walls, so I can't turn it to func_static.

[grayman]

Can you split it into a caulk-backed func_static?

[Springheel]

Not in these two cases, as the walls need to be seen by both sides. Does a func_static with caulk on it seal visportals anyway?

 

I suppose I could turn the wall into a func_static and make a smaller brush inside it to seal the leaf.

[grayman]

Not in these two cases, as the walls need to be seen by both sides. Does a func_static with caulk on it seal visportals anyway?

 

You filter out entities, and adjust the visportal so it seals on world brushes. Sticking out into the void is also acceptable.

 

I suppose I could turn the wall into a func_static and make a smaller brush inside it to seal the leaf.

 

That's a variant of my suggestion. Should work fine.

 

As for the original problem, I'd need to see the design to offer any different suggestions. Sometimes nearby visportals can cause problems, and sometimes just moving them around makes the problem go away.

[RJFerret]

I had this happen on a plain featureless wall. When looking at the r_showtris, the exact position lined up with a visportal which gave me the clue. Moving the portal didn't help (everything was already grid aligned). Rotating the portal 180° and moving it back to the original place resolved it, as nonsensical as that sounds.

 

Sometimes the answer is just, dmap doesn't like it, futz around to recreate it another way.

[Springheel]

the exact position lined up with a visportal

 

Hmm, that's a possibility with mine as well; thanks for the tip.

[rebb]

Whatever you end up doing - please please please, save a version of the glitching map somewhere so it can be used as a test-case.

We have access to the source now. We can try fixing dmap weirdness.

 

But it will be hard if these things just keep getting worked-around and overwritten instead.

[Springheel]

 

 

I suppose I could turn the wall into a func_static and make a smaller brush inside it to seal the leaf.

 

That's a variant of my suggestion. Should work fine.

 

 

Well bloody hell. Even that didn't fix it.

 

I took both walls, made them func_statics, and then made a thinner worldspawn brush inside them. In both cases it improved things, but in neither case did it solve them. One wall now has a gap that is much smaller than it was before. The other wall appears normal until you cross the visportal into the room, at which point it disappears.

[Xarg]

By any chance are you forcing any portals between you and the walls closed? Any chance you could clone the offending area into a new map, and surround it with walls so people can check it?

[Springheel]

By any chance are you forcing any portals between you and the walls closed?

 

Not yet.

 

I've got one more thing to try, and if that doesn't work I'll try to upload something.

[Xarg]

Awesome, having never had that problem I'd love to see it in action.

[Springheel]

Well bloody hell. Both areas are still showing problems. One looks fine until you walk through the nearest visportal, then the brush disappears. The other has a slim piece missing until you walk through the visportal, and then the whole brush turns into caulk(??).

 

I'm going to try and cut those pieces out into a testmap, but I'm fairly confident that once I do that they'll work perfectly.

[Springheel]

Well, that's something. I cut a section out and the problem still occurs. I'm starting to just delete nearby things one by one until I find something that fixes it. Here's what it looks like: the gap in the middle of the wall shouldn't be there...it's a solid brush.

[Springheel]

Ok, after much trial and error I found the problem, at least for that location.

 

There was another worldspawn brush that intersected the problem wall at a 90 degree angle (not directly near the gap). Shortening that brush so it didn't cut all the way through the problem wall solved the issue.

 

Below, the horizontal grey wall is the one exhibiting the problem. The vertical brush is the one that caused the problem.

[Springheel]

The second issue I solved in an even stranger way. The wall that disappeared had regular trim brushes at the floor and ceiling. Neither intersected the problem wall, but one of those trims overlapped another trim brush. Fixing that solved the problem.