light_environment

[D€vIL²]

I discoverd why my map would get locked up and stop responding when I compile my map, it was because I put a light_environment in. What I want to know is if there is a specific way or place in which you should put the entity. And if it is supposed to take a long time?

 

[JFry]

No there's no special place you put it, as long as it's not in the void. It takes a long time because it basically turns every sky texture into a light. However your compile most likely hasn't stopped(even if task manager says it has), it's just taking a while due to all the calculations.

 

[D€vIL²]

it always stops at "portalflow 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9..."

I mean for you (not considering you may have a very high end comp) does it take a long time?

 

[JFry]

Compiling can take hours or in extreme cases even days depending on the complexity of the level. However if you optimize correctly it shouldn't take more than an hour or two usually. Do a search for "compiling" on these forums and look for tuts on optimizing on some mapping sites. You'd be surprised at what a drastic effect optimizing has on compile times, as well as improving your fps in game.

 

[D€vIL²]

But the map is so small, at the moment...

edit: now if I remove the light_environment it takes just as long to compile (then stops at "9...") but before I even put it in it would compile quickly. anyway I will look around for some info on that. thanks for the help.

 

[Mess]

This sounds like shoddy brushwork to me. Check for brushes at angles or merging into each other.

 

[D€vIL²]

I know, i was very careful about that, theres no brushes going into each other. what do you mean "at angles"?

 

[Dario D.]

Diagonal brushes... like rotated ones.

...especially vertex editing. That's a dangerous one... All 6 sides must be flat.

Something must be glitched - your map should NOT be doing that so early in construction.

Perhaps try compiling one of the sdk demo maps (the example ones) and see if those have any problems...

Try one in the outdoors with a sun and light_environment.

If you want you can email me your map file and I'll see if I can see anything immediately wrong with it. ([email protected] incase you want to)

 

[D€vIL²]

will do

edit: maybe ill send you others that I have probs with.

I only have to send the VMF right?

edit edit: if you see somthing like and idea you have for these do what you want with them and send them back with changes

 

[Dario D.]

Can't open them:

They gave these 2 error messages:

"Out of memory loading solid."

and then

"File C:\dir\dir\whatever\etc\mapname.vmf, line 5363: error 7."

I tried loading them with the editor setup for HL2DM and CS:S.

Does anyone know why?

 

[JFry]

It sounds like something went horribly wrong. Bassman... what exactly did you put in this map?

 

[Dario D.]

Oh... I do recall that when bassman sent me some pics of the map, there were some meshes that I don't have.

I saw an untextured satellite that's not from the game.

That's the problem I think - I don't have any of the custom content on my computer, so it won't work :O