Now trying to optomise my map using hint brushes and i'm coming up with this error on compile can anyone shine some light on it.


WARNING: Cluster portals saw into cluster

What does it mean and is it anything to worry about?

All I have done so far is placed horizontal Hint/Clip brushes to cover my entire map which all touch the internal wall of the skybox. Some of these are very large due to map size and bisect world brushes, although having looked at the standard maps i.e. Flash and Kalt I cant see how this error is caused due to their size.

Would appreciate any help you guys can give me

I dont think it has anything to do with hints, this error generally occurs when you have intersecting world brushes. Brushes must not overlap. One way to fix this is to turn brushes that dont block vis into func_details.

The problem is it can be very hard to find these errors. I got one all of a sudden when compiling beta1 of my map and it took me about an hour to find. I used cordon bound compiling to find it, read up on this if you dont know what it is. Once you find the brush make it a func_detail and youre sorted.

I dont think the error actually causes much ill-effect in game, but it dramatically increases vis compile times.

I have seen that on a french tutorial, sorry for my english :

"BSP created a ' concave leaf' (and thus invalidates) which can ' see itself' (it is rather complex to include/understand). The solution is to simplify your architecture ave cdes func_detail as soon as possible. In general, there are few effects to this error, and if you do not manage to correct it, it is not so serious. On the other hand, it may be that your map to lose FPS at certain places because of this problem... It is not obvious to correct because one cannot know where is the problem by an unspecified means. ' func_detailer' is needed simply architecture. That can also be caused by blocks which is entered overlap, which is superimposed or which is too close to the edges of the grid of Hammer. "

good luck :)

I still believe that it has some connection to the hint brushes as I did not get this error until I placed them.

Every compile previous to placing the hint brushes did not have this error which makes me believe that they are possibly what is causing the error :confused:

If I delete the hints and recompile my map the error goes?

Hint, Skip and Playerclip brushes still generate this error as they seem to be handled as world geometry these days, however I cant see that they cause a problem as if you turn on the wireframes to see how the level is being cut up it dosent create that complex cuts that say 2 overlapping walls do.

Thanks for that mate I can rest easy in my bed tonight :D :D

That is strange, Ive never had any errors with hint/clip etc. brushes. The cluster portal errors Ive had have all been fixed by making brushes into func_details.

Interloppers give a good explanation on this error:

The affected object may not work and/or cause general errors

Description:
(I think) vbsp.exe has made a concave leaf (or in other ways invalid) that can see into itself. I've also heard about this being caused by overlapping brushes or brushes that are off-grid (thuss causing offgrid visleafs). Allthough i find this unlikely, I am not sure if it isn't, so keep those possibilities open too.

Solution:
The solution is to simplify your leafs (func_detail) as much as possible to avoid this error, but usually (or sometimes) you will find no bad things come from it and your map runs as it should. If you got unexpected low FPS somewhere, this may be the cause. Finding it may be hard, and usually ends up in using cordon tools or just not doing it at all. First look at complicated parts of your map, try to use glview glview to find it.

See also this link on how to use glview:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Glview