up until recently, my map was taking about 2 hours or so to compile. I added a small section to it, plus a few models (about 6-7) and now it won't even compile overnight.

so how long should this take? I'm going to let this thing run until it stops, but this is nuts.

the map is a little bigger than flash in overall size. looks like I am using too many texures (113 used textures, total 4.68MB) so I increased the max texture limit to 8MB. is this my problem?

BTW my system is an AMD64 3000+ with 1GB RAM running windows XP.

Sounds like you are stuck. Not an expert, but the times that my compile time has been long it has been stuck.

In the section you added...see if you have any tree models or any detailed-type brush partially in the skybox. Sometimes that can cause problems. Try compiling on fast too...see if there's anything ath stands out.

Originally posted by FuzzDad
In the section you added...see if you have any detailed-type brush partially in the skybox. Try compiling on fast too...

I do have one big model (a water tower) in there but its no where near the skybox. maybe I'll try removing it and see what happens tho.

couple of questions about compiling:
1. can I do each section of the compile seperately, ie, run hlcsg, hlbsp, hlvis, ect, one at a time? basically can I uncheck all the boxes except the one I want, then move on to the next one when that finishes?

2. where can I find info on the FASTEST compile settings? I understand that the map will look like crap, but who cares until the final compile, right?

BTW, I am using zhlt.

Originally posted by josh_u[RR]
I do have one big model (a water tower) in there but its no where near the skybox. maybe I'll try removing it and see what happens tho.

couple of questions about compiling:
1. can I do each section of the compile seperately, ie, run hlcsg, hlbsp, hlvis, ect, one at a time? basically can I uncheck all the boxes except the one I want, then move on to the next one when that finishes?

2. where can I find info on the FASTEST compile settings? I understand that the map will look like crap, but who cares until the final compile, right?

BTW, I am using zhlt.

you can configure the compile script so much its amazing. The hard part is how...

You really cannot compile a section at a time. -fast as a command line option for your vis program....the map will not run well but you can check for entities and other things. The nice thing about mapping in source is that you can run the map in -fast and still get the lighting to work...it just doesn't do vis-blocking of any real nature.

ok, the map final finished compiling...kinda. vis section took almost 11 hours :eek: and to top it off, I exceeded max patches :mad:

looks like I got work to do still...

I am using a giant box to keep from having leaks, so I'll get rid of that to try and solve my max patches problem. is there anything else I can do to help with that?

i solved that error by texturing all the faces that the player couldn't see with a random texture set to 300x300 scaling. i did use the null texture first, thinking it was like nodraw and wouldn't be drawn ingame, but it was, so i had yellow lines everywhere. so i used a concrete one i already had in the map instead, so then if you do ever see it, it shouldn't stand out much. i don't know if there's a better way but that solved it for me, at first. i've got too many again now.
the other way i think you can solve it is to put -sparse as a RAD command, or increase -texdata. i've done both of those, and even though i'm still exceeding the max patches by over 10,000, i can still compile. i'm not sure on those 2 though, i'm too tired to remember much of how i fixed the problem.

Originally posted by josh_u[RR]
ok, the map final finished compiling...kinda. vis section took almost 11 hours :eek: and to top it off, I exceeded max patches :mad:

looks like I got work to do still...

I am using a giant box to keep from having leaks, so I'll get rid of that to try and solve my max patches problem. is there anything else I can do to help with that?

11 hours?! DEAR GOD!

Ive compiled maps that take up the whole grid with copy and pasted building througout and it took me less than 1/2 an hour.

wow! thanks for the info fuzzdad, I switched from -full to -fast and the compile time went from 11 hours to less than 5 min! I expected improvement, but damn that was nice. I did some other things too which might have helped.

surgeon: I tried scaling the texures up like that and I got some max texture size error. I'm not positive that is what caused the error since I just chucked the giant box and walled the map off like its supposed to be, at the same time that I got rid of the 300x300 textures. that solved my MAX_PATCHES error.

thanks everyone for the help, I'm rollin' again. by next week I may have some screenshots to post for flaming, err, critiquing. :D

Originally posted by josh_u[RR]
I am using a giant box to keep from having leaks, so I'll get rid of that to try and solve my max patches problem. is there anything else I can do to help with that? [/B]

I'm new in this business, but (at least in source) just removing the box reduced my compile times A LOT, even though I had no leaks.

You don't want to scale more than 10x10 if you can help it. Use null if it's a non-player visible texture. (If there's a model above it, just use any texture scaled up to 10x10.)


And don't use the box method! That's why you have problems, and please don't release a map ever if it's done that way. You're almost certainly going to have a less-than normal performance of what the map could easily be.

your skybox is whats killing you. make the brushes flush with the borders of your level. Dont put the top higher than the highest point of the map, and the same applies to the lowest. this will reduce r-speeds and compile times drastically.

yeah, giant box is gone, the ground is now the outside of the map, and sky is now just extentions above the outside edge walls. good to go, although I have massive fps problems...gotta read up on some tutorials and see what can be done. my view distance isn't very far in most places, so I'm sure its something that I can fix, just need to learn how ;)

Keep in mind that what you see isn't necessarily what the engine sees. Use developer 1 and then gl_wireframe 2.

Compile times are unique to each map and they are affected by a lot of things that are done in Hammer. Once you begin to create your maps with a regard for the way the compile tools actually work, you will begin to see better performance from the compile times (and the maps will play smoother too).

Having said that, there are certain switches on the compiler tools that will really slow things down for sure. One real bottle neck is opaque entities in the RAD program. You might want to make sure its switched off - at least for test purposes.

I am doing the final test compiles on dod_wolfie.
With a fast VIS, a sparse VIS Matrix and No Opaque Entities in RAD, the map compiles in 32 minutes.
Using a full VIS and changing the RAD parameters to include the 'Extra' setting, a chop value of 64, and a bounce of 8 increases the compile time to 3 hr 30mins.
By using opaque entities with the settings above, the compile time increases to a staggering 38 hours!

I get these times on a 3GHz P4 with 2 GB Ram and Windows XP Pro

I would recommend Nem's batch compiler if you don't already use it. It has an excellent interface that lets you switch all the options on and off in each of the compile programs and it also gives a brief explanation of what each parameter does.

Finally, if your map is getting near to the limits for clip nodes, run HLFix before the CSG tool. This is a great program that can read a Hammer .rmf file and makes a far better job of converting it into a .map file than Hammer does. Vis errors are usually reduced after running the rmf through HLFix but it has one MAJOR drawback. For some reason HLFix interferes with the 'dod_score_ent' entity and it makes it impossible to play your map with more than one round in it.
Using RIPENT to edit the broken entity parameters is the only work-around I know of.

Pix

Originally posted by TheSurgeon
i solved that error by texturing all the faces that the player couldn't see with a random texture set to 300x300 scaling. i did use the null texture first, thinking it was like nodraw and wouldn't be drawn ingame, but it was, so i had yellow lines everywhere. so i used a concrete one i already had in the map instead, so then if you do ever see it, it shouldn't stand out much. i don't know if there's a better way but that solved it for me, at first. i've got too many again now.
the other way i think you can solve it is to put -sparse as a RAD command, or increase -texdata. i've done both of those, and even though i'm still exceeding the max patches by over 10,000, i can still compile. i'm not sure on those 2 though, i'm too tired to remember much of how i fixed the problem.


You should use null as it is not drawn ingame. Dont know what went wrong with yours Surgeon...

Texture every face the player cant see with NULL. It lowers the size of the .bsp and can lower r_speeds.

I haven't been using nems batch compiler so far. when I first got set up his site was down. I'll definately check it out tho now. thanks pixie

just wanted to add a litte more info here. as I've been learning more and more over the past couple of months, I've cleaned up my map a lot. this same map that used to compile in 11 hours, now compiles in 1 1/2 even using -full on vis.exe. the biggest difference came with getting rid of the giant box and actually adding some vis blocking. that got the compile time down to around 4 1/2 hours. the last thing that has made a big difference (cut another 3 hours off the time) is lining up my brushes. I had several areas that were just kinda slapped together like this:

http://josh.whatsupslc.com/map/brush_align.jpg

not only does lining this stuff up look better, but it helps with vis calculations. it seems that everytime I clean up an area (get out the vertix manipulation tool) I lop off another 15 min in compile time and usually reduce my r_speeds some.

hope this helps.

make sure you don't have any leaks too.

sometimes it will still compile if you have a leak and run pretty normally but the compile time is like forever.

null the brushes no one will ever see and reduce brushes (details) where you can get away with it.

oh and make sure you're running on high priority.


dod_united takes 26 min to compile on a gig of ram and an athlon 2400 XP

Regular HL will never compile fully with a leak. Source can half do it, but the lighting is gibbled.

Don't do the big box method ever unless your map is exactly a big box, and even then make it more of a "cover" like you would a container with seran wrap.

Take the time to make sure you've fully sealed each area (or shaped it in such a way that it behaves like you want it to. Play around with it so you get to understand the habits of the compiler(s) you're using as well as the engine in general. You'll be able to map more efficiently when you do.