Poop.

So I'm trying, very valiantly I might add, to work on my map so that I may release it to the public soon (or at the very least post some WIP screens) ... but I'm getting all sorts of lighting and cubemap anomolies that I can't figure for the life of me. I've self-troubleshooted for about 4 days now and I'm still at a loss, so I'm hoping I can find some help to ease the pain here.

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Lighting
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1) Several of my smaller rooms are having strange results with lights. They tend to cast very harsh shadows on models and some brushes.

2)When I crouch or prone in view of the area, it becomes darker.

3)When I walk through the area, the lighting shifts from light to dark and back to light again quickly (only at one spot in the room).

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Cubemaps
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1) I attached env_cubemaps to my wood floors, but they are still showing up with bluish-white splotches.

2) My opaque windows (double sided ones) show up very bright as opposed to their surrounding lighting. I think this is a cubemap problem, but I've attached env_cubemaps to them, but that didn't help.

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Displacements
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1) Sew NEVER works as it should. I don't think there's a solution to this problem.

2) I rebuilt my entire allied spawn with displacement cubes (width and length of equal values) of the same size. They still don't like to connect right, causing all sorts of stupid lighting problems and gaps (which could later lead to leaks.) ... is there some kind of trick to getting these things to sew properly?

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I have a few other problems, but these ones are increasing my blood pressure very much so. Any help from all you nice folks would be greatly appreciated. I hope to contribute some (at least decent) maps to the community, but I'm having trouble grasping a few of the new additions to the mapping process since Source.

Sorry for being a pain, but I could really use some help.

I will try and help :)

Originally posted by {GL}DoubleD

Lighting
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1) 2) 3) Several of my smaller rooms,,,,,,,,,,,,


Sounds like you have some model textures there, click on the textures in question and if you can see model/**** etc in the name change it for one that dosent.

If that dosent cure it is there a cubemap in that room? or is it near by?

Also dont forget some models dont need to cast shadows so disable shadows on them too (like rubble)

Originally posted by {GL}DoubleD

Cubemaps
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1) I attached env_cubemaps to my wood floors, but they are still showing up with bluish-white splotches.


I had this with a wood texture and I think its prob the same one you are using, anyway when I used a HDR skybox and did a HDR buildcubemaps it fixed it, I think this is generally the case with alot of the overly shiny textures.

Originally posted by {GL}DoubleD

Cubemaps
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2) My opaque windows (double sided ones) show up very bright,,,,,,,,


Dont attach the cubemap to the model, try just having it in the room (in the light you want cast on the model)

Originally posted by {GL}DoubleD

Displacements
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1) 2) Sew NEVER works as it should. I don't think there's a solution to this problem.,,,,,,,,


Sew will only work on displacements were the 2 faces that you are trying to sew are of matching length and at the same height, I know it sounds simple and im sure youve checked but check again as its the only reason I know of that can cause sew not to work,

as for 2 displacments do not seal a map so they will always leak, generally I put a nodraw brush behind all my displacments to seal the map.

And if sew isnt working correctly that will also cause your gaps, if your using Anti-Aliasing there can sometimes appear to be hairline cracks ive found.

Hope this all helps, mapping is a pain in the arse and I dont know why we do it :p when it gets too much take a deep breath and scream at the top of ur voice ;)

Originally posted by [oap]Agent_S

Hope this all helps, mapping is a pain in the arse and I dont know why we do it :p when it gets too much take a deep breath and scream at the top of ur voice ;)

I normaly make a test map, google it or look in the forums :rolleyes:

LIGHTING:

I've been having the same problem since I started mapping. Walking around and seeing walls cut in from black to lit is very unsatisfying. I've tried analyzing what is causing it by isolating the problem to exactly where it screws up. No luck.. it feels totally random. I do know that scoping can cuase it to change too, so its POV-based rather than location-based.

I'll post screenshots if its not clear. ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated.

SEWING:
Being ignorant, I thought I'd be really cool and use cannonfodder's terrain generator. I used his "no texture stretching" thing which sounds great, but it works through x and y displacement rather than just z. And of course the whole fricken ground was displaced very far from the actual solid location, didn't realize until I learned more about mapping. Clipping and sewing became hell. If you have two surfaces that has any amounts of non-conjoining (in terms of x and y) points then it won't sew. I don't know exactly how it works, but I came to the conclusion that you can really only sew when you have 1 dimension of displacement. Logically that makes sense, but anyone correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks for the replies fellas.

I checked and I DID have model textures on some of my walls (the walls that were messing up) ... I don't know if it fixed the problem, however, as I haven't recompiled yet.

I've given up on expecting a good sew. I just did it manually... when I release this map, I hope people will forgive the gross displacements... lol. I'll get better with practice, I'm sure.

One more question, this one's about physics models --


-- My tables, chairs, and lamps all seem to 'fly' from their placed location in the editor during gameplay. I checked to make sure they weren't clipping into solid brushes, and they're not. It only seems to affect lighter-weight objects,
couches, pianos, etc seem to work fine. Any idea why it's doing this? I've tried starting the entity with the 'Start Asleep' flag, but it doesn't seem to help.

SEWING

If you have an urban environment where you want to make the streets out of displacements for blending textures and prettier terrain-esque topography, place your bulidings and major brush based geometry first. Build your displacements after. Or if you want to lay everythign out first, be prepared to re-place your displament brushes. Get all them all set, create them, then sew them. Works well for me and I'm not having any problems with sewing at all anymore.

Originally posted by izuno
SEWING

If you have an urban environment where you want to make the streets out of displacements for blending textures and prettier terrain-esque topography, place your bulidings and major brush based geometry first. Build your displacements after. Or if you want to lay everythign out first, be prepared to re-place your displament brushes. Get all them all set, create them, then sew them. Works well for me and I'm not having any problems with sewing at all anymore.

Why do you do this? Does it effect the sewing? I'm wondering because I have an entire map with displacement maps as the base and putting brushes ontop and getting the hairline cracks also.

My preferred (well the only one i can get to work) I stole from de_aztec, they use this where the water is.

Make your floor with a nice big flat brush, then away from this make a large paper thin flat brush, displace this but make the overall height a lot higher than you need. Then overlay this on your flat brush and drop it thru it until you get the height you are looking for, this works well for piling up rubble either side of a street as you can use one displacement for both sides, careful if you allow access to the buildings either side as its likely to end up poking thru the wall.