clip it, skip it, hint it, what is it?

[Trinityxero]

someone tell me what all the clip and hint brushes do.... ive neve used them on ANY of my maps

 

[Ames]

http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/Hammer/html/Tool_Clipping.htm
http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/Levels/performance_and_visibility.html

 

[Raeven0]

A clip brush, in stark contrast to the clip tool as posted above, stops certain objects from passing through it while allowing all other objects. Playerclip, NPCclip, etc.

 

[Phisionary]

http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/Hammer/html/Tool_Clipping.htm

Hahaha... I think he meant clip, the texture, not clip, the tool.

Clip brushes (i.e. world brushes with the 'clip' tool texture applied) are brushes that block player moverment. Pretty much two usages:

1) Block the player from going places they should not go

I personally find this very frustrating, running up against an invisible wall. But it can be useful if there is a wall or something, and you think, maybe they can get over it...?
Well, put a clip brush to block it and you don't have to worry about it.

2) Prevent the player from getting 'stuck' on things.

Whether literal, or just in game-flow. Say you want to have a 'bump' in a wall. Even one unit of brush geometry will stop the player dead. Make a little angular clip brush and that wont happen. Doorknobs, details, things like that, if you to be physical, but not catch the player, surround it with a clip brush.
Also, there are places in some maps where the player can get stuck, and not move. There was a CS:S pre-official remake of train that had a displacement texture up against a vertical wall. Get between them and you'd be stuck for about 30 seconds. Use a clip brush to prevent this. Narrow cracks and the like can also trap the player.

I'm not sure if it blocks grenades, but I don't think it blocks bullets. Also check the player_clip and bullet blocking textures, maybe compare them in a test, I dunno. You can prbably look it up too...

and, fyi, in CS:S you can type r_drawclipbrushes 1 in teh console (probably in DM as well) and see them in-game. For CS, try de_tides, I saw quite a few examples on that map (like all of the stairs, interestingly).

Hint brushes are for vis-leaf optimization stuff, and I am no expert. Check out area_portals too, if you are interested in this an frame-rate optimization.

Edit: take five minutes to reply, someone answers first. I should expect it

 

[Nard]

On the same subject, can someone tell me what blocks player entities and doesn't block grenade entities?

Or another thing that would help me, do thrown grenades have entity names that you can use for triggers and such?

 

[Raeven0]

Playerclip.

In HL2 and HL2DM, thrown grenades have the classname npc_grenade_frag; in CS:S, there's a different classname, but since grenades are essentially dropped weapons, they probably won't trigger stuff.

 

[Phisionary]

in cs:s it's weapon_hegrenade, same as an unthrown one, I think. Not sure about that..
They don't respond the same as dropped weapons though, but I can't remember exactly how so.

 

[Raeven0]

The thrown grenades are hegrenade_projectile, flashbang_projectile, and smokegrenade_projectile. Unfortunately, a mapper can't place these in his map and manually detonate them, because Valve *forgot* (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here) to include an Explode input.

 

[Phisionary]

oh, dammit. lol. I just found those names....


can't explode 'em, but you can light them on fire :thumbs:

or kill them and make them disappear, lol. that might be useful.

as an aside... kinda interesting, if I break a window with an hegrenade, the grenade is the !activator, but with the flash and smoke, it's the player...

 

[silentbob]

so do skips and hint work with CSS? i see reasons for HL2 but what about multiplayer games?

 

[Raeven0]

They work for any mod that uses the Source engine. Cutting up VIS leaves properly is especially important in multiplayer.

 

[silentbob]

k thx, didn't know if players in different areas messed it up or anything,

thanks again