3D Skybox and leaking

[Sphinxter]

I've got a pretty huge map now and its suddenly leaking bigtime. The pointfile is pointing at the info_player_start entity and taking some nasty curves before going upwards into void. I'm 100% sure its not touching any brushes/entities or the skybox itself so it's prolly another leak somewhere. I've created a 3D-skybox and resized to 1/16 and moved it away from origo (normal procedure which works fine).

Have I missunderstood leaking if I think that I'm safe when the skybox is sealed around my world and no parts of the world are colliding with the skybox? If I'm wrong tell me, If not how can I have leaks? Is not the "void" outside the skybox only?

 

[AcousticToad]

Did you create the brushes manually around the map or create a solid block covering all of it? If its solid you will need to hollow it out, if you did it the first way then check that theres absolutly no little holes anywhere. If you already hollowed it out then make sure theres no entities stuck inside the sky brush.

 

[Sphinxter]

I am sure of all that. hollow solid cube skybox, no brush/entities sticking out or touches the box. so if that is done right there can be no leaks?
the skybox has worked for long now, its just reasently I got the leak but the skybox is still the same and nothing is touching/penetrating it. I even made a new solid skybox (hollow cube) around with good margin on the actual world and it still leaks.

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

i don't understand how you're not finding the leak with the pointfile loaded? any helpful screenies?

 

[Sphinxter]

I'll add one once I get home from work. But the red pointed line is pretty long

Thx. Finding leaks sure is tricky. Should be some automatic alert when some entitiy/brush crosses a skybox texture or something. And an align-button to align brushes/entities to a surface so not one pixel which is hard to manually spot crosses the surface. Maybe some day...

but to the more general question. If you make that hollow skybox solid and no parts of your world is interfering can one assume that no leaks is possible?

 

[FictiousWill]

Load the pointfile, like Gonzo says.

 

[Tynan]

Make sure you didn't turn your skybox brush into an entity. Double click on it in the 3D view. I did this once by acceident.

By the way, brushes can touch the inside of your skybox.

 

[Sphinxter]

Tested last night and if I delete the leaking entity, the pointfile just shows a new entity as the leaking one, and so on.... As I understand it, the pointfile finds the _closest_ entity to the leak and "points" towards the leakage. (in my case upwards)

Again I'm 110% sure no part of my world is touching or interferring with the skybox (miniateur skybox) in even a slightest pixel. And I would really like a confirmation on my assumption that a world within an enclosed 3d-box should not have any way of producing a leakage. I've reproduced my skybox so many times now with size ranging from almost touching my world to making huge gaps on every side, without any luck.

When that said I think my problem is my understanding of how the skybox camera works with the skybox itself. I have read quite a few tutorials on how to set up a 3d skybox and transform it to 1/16 in scale to save prosessing time. However all the tutorials seem to be based on eachother and does not come with additional information on exactly what parts you have to add in your miniatur skybox and what happens if the camera is not placed in origo but rather what you see as the center of the map.. (my world does not have a clear center).

What exactly happens when you downsize the skybox to 1/16 and put a camera in there? Do you need all the brushes from your real world inside the miniateur skybox? how about the entities? In one tutorial it says you needed all your light-entities aswelll, in others they only state that some major structures around the borderline of your world should go in the miniatur skybox.

So far I've followed the latter and it works fine if the world is extremely simple.

I'll try to summaries my questions:

1) What elements is required inside the miniatur skybox?

2) The positioning of the camera if the world got no obvious "center" or the world center is not origo in the grid system.

4) confirmation that a world enclosed in a skybox can't produce any leakage (and ergo I must be blind and stupid not finding my leak )

(I did try to skip the 1/16 part and make the skybox actually around my real world but the conpilation time took hours and I gave up when I understood it could be weeks! and my world is not complex at all. Only basic walls/floors all with same texture without heavy entities and lighting).

Thx

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

Tested last night and if I delete the leaking entity, the pointfile just shows a new entity as the leaking one, and so on.... As I understand it, the pointfile finds the _closest_ entity to the leak and "points" towards the leakage. (in my case upwards)

how do you mean "leaking entity"? Entities don't leak, the pointfile just points from an entity to the leak in the map.

if you could attatch the vmf as a zip file i'm sure i'd be able to understand what the problem is exactly but i'm struggling to imagine what the problem is with your level. sorry

 

[Sphinxter]

With "leaking entity" I mean the entity the pointmap displays. The entity from which the red line starts...

If I just could get some general answers to my questions about skybox I think I would get a lot further. I'm afk from my mod comp, but will bump and post some ss/files later on.

Nice forum and good help!

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

1. you need a light_environment, a sky_camera (which should relate to point 0,0 on the main map) and the entire area should be enclosed inside a cube with the tools\skybox texture on it

2. i don't understand the question to be honest!

3. if both your skybox area and the main area are enclosed in a skybox texture there shouldn't be any leaks

hope that helps in some way, and that i've not missed anything too!

 

[Sphinxter]

Thanks!
Think my missing link is to enclose BOTH the miniateur AND the real world in skybox textire. I only enclosed the miniateur one as explained as explained by many tutorials. they all seem to lack the information to enclose BOTH parts. Will test it soon. Waiting for miracles

My second question was...simplified... If a world is not centered around Origo (0,0,0), should still the sky_camera be placed in origo? (this is before you copy, paste and rescale to 1/16). I think the tutorials are missleading here because placing the sky_cam in origo when your world may not have origo as a natural center would perhaps shift the skybox relative to the camera and create some nasty leaking possibilities that is hard to spot.

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

that's what's causing your problem! if the 'real world' part isn't enclosed in the skybox texture it's a very, very big leak!

and yeah, the sky_camera is always placed at (0,0) no matter where the map is built. you then move the sky camera with the miniature skybox. you have to do this so when the engine recreates the small skybox at realsize it knows how to draw it in relation to the playing area. it draws it from (0,0) and uses the sky_camera as a reference point.

 

[Sphinxter]

It's incredible that after reading sooo many tut's and forum's on skyboxes, I didn't pick up that skybox should enclose the two parts. (It's also weird because I did not get leak in the early stages of the map, and it compiles and runs smoothly besides the leak). I could be blind tho But I also suspect that most of the tut's are not bullet-proof as I have seen many times by now. For example I learned to build many different types of doors by myself and when reading tutorials afterwards I see peeps using two hinges etc which is not required at all.
Did the writer really think one hinge wouldnt carry the door? lol.

Thanks a million Gonzo and rest.

 

[FictiousWill]

To see the difference between a leaked and enclosed map, simply noclip outside the leaking one and look at all the backfaces that should be removed from the map.