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Topic: Portalling inside of big buildings? |
MetalMilitiaNL |
General Member Since: Mar 8, 2008 Posts: 20 Last: Apr 26, 2010 [view latest posts] |
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Category: CoD4 MP Mapping Posted: Friday, Sep. 18, 2009 04:08 am |
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Hello,
I have a question about portalling too.
Sofar I understand the portalling issue, but now came something up in my map that I'm not sure of.
I'm making a big office building with several offices, cafetaria, staircase, elevatorshaft, showroom and a basement with a few rooms and a shootingrange.
This is spread out over 4 floors.
I know I can portal the basement by making a portal in the elevatorshaft, portal_no_draw facing down
I have put portals on every window and door, inside and outside.
The walls, floor and ceiling of every room are structural brushes, the rest are made in detail brushes.
My question is : do I need to portal the doors inside, that go into the offices?
It seems to me that this would give errors, because of the weird cell partition
The offices are placed around an center entrancehall.
Here a screenie, keep in mind, it's still work in progress
Thanks for the help you guys give.
MetalMilitiaNL |
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techno2sl |
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General Member Since: Aug 5, 2004 Posts: 2977 Last: Oct 14, 2010 [view latest posts] |
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Category: CoD4 MP Mapping Posted: Friday, Sep. 18, 2009 04:30 am |
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I would read up on this first Portalling/BSP
Remember portal no draw does nothing at all, portal no draw is simply an invisible non-colliding texture that can be used on the remaining 5 sides of a portal brush because most other textures wouldn't suit (caulk for example) and it gives a visual reference to the mapper.
The "portal" texture is actually double sided, so when you portal a door frame you are creating a split that will work both ways - from infront and form behind the door.
I think if you turn off "no draw" in your Filters (F) you will see the Portal texture better and understand better what I'm trying to say.
As a note, if you don't have much detail or models in your level then the need for Portals becomes less greater than that of a highly detailed level, in fact more portals means more calculations = less FPS so test constantly. |
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MetalMilitiaNL |
General Member Since: Mar 8, 2008 Posts: 20 Last: Apr 26, 2010 [view latest posts] |
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Category: CoD4 MP Mapping Posted: Friday, Sep. 18, 2009 05:18 am |
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Hey Techno2sl,
Thanks for the quick reply and the link.
I've read it through quickly, but will read it again when I'm not that busy this weekend.
Let's see if I understood what you saying.
To portal a door or window I first make the complete brush portal no draw, then deselect all and select only the 2 outside faces and put the portal texture on it?
Why do the windows and doors in the stockmap mp_blackout have the portal no draw on the inside then?
And my question still is not exactly answered.
Do I need to portal the doors and windows in the inside of the building?
Thanks for the help (not meant sarcastic)
MetalMilitiaNL
Rock on |
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techno2sl |
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General Member Since: Aug 5, 2004 Posts: 2977 Last: Oct 14, 2010 [view latest posts] |
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Category: CoD4 MP Mapping Posted: Friday, Sep. 18, 2009 06:43 am |
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Only one side of the brush should be "Portal" but you have to think of it as being 2 sided
At the moment you think the Portal is 1 side, but in fact its 2 sided even though we only texture 1 face of the brush with it. (turn off the No Draw filter and the move in the 3d window to both sides of your portal and you'll see).
This means that you are not portalling in 1 direction, but 2. So portalling inwards and outwards are the same thing.
To test, you can have a portal no draw brush on 2 doors of a single room. Have 1 brush with the portal texture on the exterior face and 1 with the portal texture on the interior face. The engine only reads the "Portal" texture and so you have created a working Portal cell, but how can that be if they are "facing in separate directions?" .... (go in game, turn on developer mode and hit /r_showportals 1,you will now see BOTH sides of any single portal which wouldn't be the case if it was 1 sided 'facing' a single direction)...
So you are still selecting 1 Face but that 1 Face has 2 Sides in the game.
It's very hard to explain without diagrams and there should be a more in depth tutorial, I've been meaning to write one for a while if I get time I will.
I can't really answer your map specific question without first making sure you understand exactly how a portal brush works and how it is read by the game, because it's imperative you know this and that knowledge will answer your question and probably change your portalling methods.
Remember Blackout was made by a mapper, which way the portals "face" was entirely down to the mappers choice at the time, it would make no difference if they 'faced' the other way, aka if they were textured on the other side.
The only thing I can say in order to make you think differently is 'forget' about portal no draw, just think of the "Portal" texture itself and how it's actually a 2 sided texture, so it 'faces' both ways. |
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mr_sly |
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General Member Since: Apr 10, 2007 Posts: 138 Last: May 29, 2015 [view latest posts] |
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techno2sl |
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General Member Since: Aug 5, 2004 Posts: 2977 Last: Oct 14, 2010 [view latest posts] |
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tourist.Tam |
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General Member Since: Feb 2, 2007 Posts: 397 Last: Oct 6, 2009 [view latest posts] |
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Category: CoD4 MP Mapping Posted: Friday, Sep. 18, 2009 12:32 pm |
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I would advice you to set a couple bind command to show and hide the portal when testing the map. Something along the line of:
Code:
bind "key" r_showPortals 0
bind "otherKey" r_showPortals 1
I have this among other command for testing in game, and it is quite nice to see things working. Almost forgot, you should find the file where to write this under the user folder as a .config file. I am not at my dev computer so I can't double check, but the idea is there. ;)
Tam |
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mr_sly |
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General Member Since: Apr 10, 2007 Posts: 138 Last: May 29, 2015 [view latest posts] |
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zeroy |
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General Member Since: Nov 26, 2007 Posts: 1060 Last: Mar 12, 2014 [view latest posts] |
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Category: CoD4 MP Mapping Posted: Friday, Sep. 18, 2009 05:09 pm |
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MetalMilitiaNL writes...Quote: My question is : do I need to portal the doors inside, that go into the offices?
Sure why not?
You must get the idea that when you create portals you create "cells". enclosing each room within your building (if the inside is structural of course) will help FPS a good bit and its usually quite easy to do by filling up the doorways or windows.
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zeroy |
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General Member Since: Nov 26, 2007 Posts: 1060 Last: Mar 12, 2014 [view latest posts] |
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Category: CoD4 MP Mapping Posted: Friday, Sep. 18, 2009 05:13 pm |
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techno2sl writes...Quote:
The only thing I can say in order to make you think differently is 'forget' about portal no draw, just think of the "Portal" texture itself and how it's actually a 2 sided texture, so it 'faces' both ways.
Good assert on this, the Portal_NoDraw could be any other "invisible" texture, in fact you can use Decal_NoDraw instead it makes no difference. Why? Because the only face that counts is the blue one done with "Portal" tool texture. The 5 other faces of the brush need to have something on thats invisible and non-colliding, the dev choose to call it Portal_NoDraw. |
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