Exterior Leakage Woes

[Uncertain Title]

I started working on my first exterior area, and have been losing my mind over leaks.

What causes a brush to go from being considered 'sealing', to 'needs to be sealed?'

[Baal]

Are you aware of the pointfile feature? Dmap writes these .lin files into the maps directory. Display them with File->Pointfile and look for red lines that visualize problems like leaks and visportal problems.

Which faces of a brush are sealing depends on the material assigned to the face. I don't know exactly which ones seal and which don't. 

[datiswous]

There's also a menu button to move the 3d view to the currently selected leak/lin.

[Dragofer]

15 hours ago, Uncertain Title said:

What causes a brush to go from being considered 'sealing', to 'needs to be sealed?'

Generally speaking, solid + opaque materials like wood or stone will seal, while nonsolid ones like materials meant for dirt decals won't. Some exceptions, for example caulk is a popular solid + invisible sealant, unlike i.e. all the nodraw and nodrawsolids which won't seal.

Another thing that helps a lot is to use a large grid size like 8 or 16 units sealing geometry. This way you can more easily align parts and see gaps. Details can be done with smaller brushes or with patches.

All of your detail pieces should be entities instead of worldspawn due to compiler reasons. This has the extra benefit that you can use the "All entities" filter to hide entities and only see your sealing worldspawn geometry.

[Uncertain Title]

20 hours ago, Baal said:

Are you aware of the pointfile feature? Dmap writes these .lin files into the maps directory. Display them with File->Pointfile and look for red lines that visualize problems like leaks and visportal problems.

Which faces of a brush are sealing depends on the material assigned to the face. I don't know exactly which ones seal and which don't. 

Actually yes! I am aware of the pointfile. But thank you for pointing it out. It's actually the pointfile specifically that has been giving me headaches.

18 hours ago, datiswous said:

There's also a menu button to move the 3d view to the currently selected leak/lin.

Interesting, I had no idea! Do you know where I might find it?

 

8 hours ago, Dragofer said:

Generally speaking, solid + opaque materials like wood or stone will seal, while nonsolid ones like materials meant for dirt decals won't. Some exceptions, for example caulk is a popular solid + invisible sealant, unlike i.e. all the nodraw and nodrawsolids which won't seal.

Another thing that helps a lot is to use a large grid size like 8 or 16 units sealing geometry. This way you can more easily align parts and see gaps. Details can be done with smaller brushes or with patches.

All of your detail pieces should be entities instead of worldspawn due to compiler reasons. This has the extra benefit that you can use the "All entities" filter to hide entities and only see your sealing worldspawn geometry.

Ha, and here I thought it would be better to use brushes for simple geometry rendering instead of complicated entities. Thank you for the warning.

I bet the reason I'm having so many issues has to do with NoDraw textures...I'll take a look next time I get the chance.

 

Thanks, to the three of you. It's good to know that I'm looking in the right places and have some new avenues to venture.

[datiswous]

2 hours ago, Uncertain Title said:

Interesting, I had no idea! Do you know where I might find it?

View > Camera > Next / Previous leak spot

Edited February 20 by datiswous

[Uncertain Title]

20 hours ago, datiswous said:

View > Camera > Next / Previous leak spot

Awesome, thank you so much. That's saving me so much time!

[grodenglaive]

One other thing: if you have any entities with their origin outside your sealed geometry, that will also show up as a leak even if your worldspawn geometry itself has no leaks. I think in those cases the pointfile will not show a red line. (edit) you still get a red line.

Edited February 22 by grodenglaive

[thebigh]

6 hours ago, grodenglaive said:

you still get a red line.

Yes, but sometimes it is very short and difficult to spot.