blocking vis question

[noexp]

I've made a map with an open area centered around a large church. (dod_seg3 remake/tribute) I have the church roof rectangular but its rounded along the top like a giant, hollow half-cylinder on its side. In the front face of this half-cylinder I have a round window, which as you can imagine makes some pretty horrendous brushwork for vvis, thus I made the entire roof a func_detail.

http://www.imagehosting.com/show.php/196318_churchroof.JPG.html

I have on the right made some geometry to inset into the roof that I am hoping I could use to block vis down into and out from inside of the church. Do I need it inside the walls/ceiling brushwork so that it doesn't stop the rendering of the actual roof? what texture/entity do i make this from? I don't think i can use an areaportal because I don't have solid geometry surrounding the visbrush** (permit me to call my creation on the right side my visbrush) What should I do? Btw the roof sits on a rectangular set of wall pieces that are solid geometry, non func_detail brushes. Am I going about this correctly?

thanks in advance to anyone who read my post and has any suggestions for me, I am sort of stumped on this whole portals thing. This is my first really large or advanced map and online tutorials were unable to asnswer for me my rather specific case.

 

[DjBourgeoisie]

Looking at your geometry, you really should read up on proper brush creation as well as some optimization guides, http://www.student***.nl/rvanhoorn/optimization.php?chapter=intro&PHPSESSID=bfab6ac30986c76cb770ac046c2f3ff3 is probably the most extensive guide out there. You are wasting alot of poly the way you are creating your doorway. Hope this helps.

 

[noexp]

i have changed the geometry on the window portion of the wall to simplify it, i had used carve on a cylinder to create that brush. I had intended on only using that ugly brush as a template to make my own manually. But this doesn't change my problem, i still need a solution to block vis?

does the nodraw texture on a brush block vis? Can it be placed within the dimentions of the func_detail? what about using skybox inside? do theese things cause problems? Thanks for pointing out the brushwork but I still need to know how to block vis through this object with a brush palced inside of it? (if that can be done at all)

 

[noexp]

i hope its not frowned upon that i reply to my own question, but i think i should just make the whole roof a func_detail and then enclose it in one giant hint brush? does this make any sense? then if you see the roof it will render the entire thing, but if your outside it won't render the inside and vice versa.

 

[JFry]

You don't want to make the whole roof a func_detail because entities don't block vis. I think putting the whole roof in a hint box will work. Personally I'd wait to put hint brushes in until your geometry is finalized.