Dark Radiant talk

[greebo 61]

Hey one question about patches. It's said in the wiki that they don't seal against the void, so I guess I have to use solid textures behind every patch instead of caulk, for the visportals to work, right?

In fact, you should use caulk in that case (that's one of the few cases where you actually need to caulk stuff).

 

As the faces behind the patch are not visible, there is no point in using an actual textured material for it, that's wasted GPU time. The Caulk material will do and will seal your map against the void just fine.

[STiFU 753]

Ok, thanks. I am a little confused by that though. After all, caulk is not visible, so why does it seal against void? I am assuming I could use caulk on the void walls as well then, so that they are plain black.

 

I actually intentionally caulked surfaces behind patches, but as I read that patches don't seal, I wanted to make sure, I am not doing a mistake...

[greebo 61]

Ok, thanks. I am a little confused by that though. After all, caulk is not visible, so why does it seal against void?

It is regarded as such by the map compiler. It's a sealing material, which doesn't get rendered.

 

I am assuming I could use caulk on the void walls as well then, so that they are plain black.

If you're referring to the faces that are only visible from the "outside" of the map (from the void) - you don't need to caulk them, this is automatically done by the compiler. Just noclip out of your level and you'll see that none of the outside faces get rendered.

 

edit: this is the caulk definition, for anybody who's interested, along with the original id comments:

// a caulk brush will behave as a normal solid surface
// for collision detection and utility flood filling, and
// should be used whenever you know the area isn't going to
// be visible, but it needs to be closed off for things to
// work right.  Curves and models don't stop the utility
// flood filling, so you need to have solid brushes behind
// them.  Setting the faces that won't ever be seen to
// caulk will save some rendering time and data space.
textures/common/caulk
{
qer_editorimage textures/common/caulk.tga
noshadows
forceOpaque			// will still seal levels
}

[greebo 61]

@STiFU: I fixed this issue #495. The func_*-based entities (and their child primitives) are affected by the SurfaceInspector actions now.

 

Once the next release or snapshot is released, please confirm the fix and close the report if it's positive.

 

(In case you don't know: this is our usual process when dealing with bug reports: The reporter opens an issue, the developer fixes it and the reporter tries to confirm the resolution. If it can be confirmed, the reporter closes the issue - if not, it's reopened.)

[STiFU 753]

Yeah nice, I got the email with that info already though. I'll have time to look at it after my tests, which are scheduled the next two mondays. I am assuming a "snapshot" in this context is a more recent release of the editor, but not the actual next version? I checked the SVN on sourceforge, but I am not too familiar with compiling rather complex stuff like this by myself, since my coding experience has been limited to simpler algorithms so far(, which I hope will change in the future).

[greebo 61]

Yeah nice, I got the email with that info already though. I'll have time to look at it after my tests, which are scheduled the next two mondays. I am assuming a "snapshot" in this context is a more recent release of the editor, but not the actual next version?

Yes, with snapshot I mean the occasional compile I'm uploading to our FTP: http://darkradiant.sourceforge.net/snapshot.php

 

The one linked there is outdated (before 0.9.5) - I will compile a new one soon.

[STiFU 753]

Ah yeah, I was searching for something like that, but couldn't find a link to it on the DR page. You should probably introduce one in the download section or have I just overseen it?

[greebo 61]

I haven't linked that snapshot page very visibly to prevent users from rushing in and download the development snapshot. I rather want to give the snapshot download link away based on requests like yours.