I have an annoying issue the just popped up in Hammer. Its seems that some of the brush entities seeming flash in and out of existence in the 3D view window during normal camera moves. I have not seen this before and I've recently installed a new ATI HD2900XT, which IMO is an over priced POS, and I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it. Has anyone else seen this or know what's causing it?

Cheers.

I have that same thing going on. It only happens when there are two brushes occupying the same space. I just assumed it was the engine trying to render two things in the same space. Which means there is some messy brush work going on.


The olny other time ive seen it was when I textured a brush with a metal fence. the brush its self was the wrong size, once I resized the brush it went away.


So my answer... be cleaner on your brush work. Use a bigger grid, try not to go below 4. Make sure your brush sizes match up with the intended texture.


I really doubt its your vid card

On some of the brushes they will eventually become displacements so I was very specific on the the making the vertexes line up with each other. However, I will have to look at the texture scaling because I may have changed that property. I have other bushes the are simple rectangular blocks with default texture scaling and do the same flashy bit. It not just one face that goes away but the whole construction. Weird.

Only thing I can think of is the fade distances being too short, but I doubt that's the problem from how you've described it.

I think I know what you mean, I can remember experiencing it, but I can't recall the reason why it happened...

It could very well be your graphics card, have you updated the drivers? Do that first and then see if it still does the same thing.
If that doesn't fix it, you could upload the map to another computer and see if it does the same thing...

Another thing to look at, are the textures on the brushes similar? It could that you are using alphablend textures, or transparent textures or something fiddly like that.. Is it only on the brush-based entities? and not just normal brushes? Are there any similaraities in the entities?

That also happens when you use the scale tool a bit too much on certain brushes like the skybox.

Usually, I'd run a "check for problems" alt+p, to see if any of my brushes are invalid. If that turns out ok, I'd close Hammer and load it back up again.

Create a shortcut on your desktop for the sdk and use the -dxlevel 81 switch, this worked for me when a certian update made hammer not like dx 9.

I would also suggest you go and make sure you have the latest DX

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0A9B6820-BFBB-4799-9908-D418CDEAC197&displaylang=en

I've found atleast 2 textures that actually do that. I just changed the textures and avoid using those 2 now. Havn't seen it since. One was a black wooden shingles texture and the other was a wooden fence texture. Its not your system, I sent the vmf over to another mapper and he saw the same thing. The 2 textures are from the default .wad file.

If you're using a texture that is a texture for a model, then you will get this flashing effect in Hammer.

I've updated to the latest drivers and there still is an issue with those bushes but I've come to the conclusion that it must be problem with initial brush construction. I've been working with another map and I don't see any problems in it. I guess I could put a skybox around the problem map and compile it to see if there are errors, but I think I'm going to pitch it to the bin and move on.

Thanks for help and responses.

What texture are you using on those brushes?