Got a few Q's guys, help a lot if anyone could help out:

1. Hey I was just wondering if the world origin point (0,0) has anything important about it, I saw in some sample map that it was covered with a world brush. Any particular reason?

2. Sometimes when I use a 3D skybox I can see the bottom of my map in the sky (quite small and distant) and when I fire my gun I can see it in the same place as I am in the small map. Does this have anything to do with where I place my skybox reletive to my map? Any way around it?

3. Displacements onto of brushes, if it covers the whole brush does that mean I can use nodraw? I tired it once and the displacement was all white and bright, do displacements get their lighting info from the brush under them? ( I'm guessing nodraw has no lighting info)


Thanks in advance

1) I'd have thought I'd know an answer to this one, but I don't have a clue. As far as I knew it was just a coordinate on the map, no special function or purpose. I usually start building my maps at 0,0 but on occasion I've done it waaaay off center and had no problems.

2) I had my map show up in my skybox once, but that was due to a leak which I quickly fixed. Other than that, I usually get white, black or skybox textures below, depending on the sky I pick. I'm still pretty new to 3d skyboxes, haven't gotten insanely complex with them yet.

3) Only time I can remember a displacement going all wonky shades on me was when I used a model texture on it. If your displacement shares the same plane as another brush, you should be able to nodraw without problems. If your displacement sinks below the brush, then nodraw will cause that area to disapear. I had a cave map when I was still learning hammer in HL2 that had walls that were mostly portruding outwards but had a few recesses which sunk beyond my nodraw texture. I figured that since the texture doesn't draw my displacement will still show up, but it didn't.

On the other hand, displacements that are flush with another brush still showed up and screwed up some unique shapes I had made, so I had to push the surfaces that were flush below the brush. Hey, I rhymed.

All else fails, try it and see, wouldn't take long to compile a map to check and see how it looks.

1. Point of origin is both the point where the player will start on the map right after he connects (the first thing he sees) and where the sky_camera entity should be placed before scaling down your 3D Skybox. You can replace that point of origin if you'd rather the player starts somewhere else (to load up whatever he sees in the game will reduce the load times IN the game after that) with a "point_viewcontrol" entity.

2. It happens on a BSP only compile, but if it happens at any other times for a fast or full compile, then you're probably having leaks, or areaportals problem which may or may not be indicated as leaks.

3. Displacements are still world brushes light wise. They are lit by the light_environment entity, and any nearby light entity. You should use a full nodraw (whenever applicable) brush. The perfect example would be a street or field, you're not gonna see below the displacement anyway.

Remember that if your nodraw brush should stick out above your displacement at any particular spot, the lighting will be off, because the nodraw texture stops light. You will therefore still see the displacement through the nodraw texture, but it will appear considerably darker, and for no obvious reason. That's why sometimes (craters come to mind) there is more to VIS blocking than just one nodraw brush below your displacement. You may need more than one.

All in all, from what I gather from your questions and description, I'd say you have leaks and/or are using model textures on world brushes. Check it out

guys i've seen a few tutorials on map making but they only do a room or how to do doors

is there a bigger one anywhere that covers a whole small map including all the extras like no draw and no clip and how and why etc.