Too many portals will indeed slow the game down while playing.

The idea behind portals is to tell the game engine about places that restrict the player's field of view. The classic example is a window: you can see through it, but it restricts *where* you can see - that is, you can *only* see through it; the walls around it block your vision.

Outside, a good place to put a portal would be between two buildings that block off larger areas. For instance, if your map had two large fields in the north-east and south-west corners, and two large buildings in the north-west and south-east corners, and you could pass through a small area between the buildings, that area would be a good place for a portal. Why? Because, when you're in one of the fields, you can't see into the other field except through the narrow portal, so the game engine can use that portal to avoid drawing the part of the other field that the buildings are blocking.

When a road winds around the map, it can be good to place portals at various places along it to section it off into pieces. But this is only good if it's a windy road, so you can't see through more than a couple portals down the road at a time. If the road is straight, then someone standing on one end of the road can see all the way down it, and having a portal on it will just give the game engine extra work.

I recommend you go into the Dawnville sample map and see where they placed their portals - or walk around the game with r_showportals 1. Notice how they're generally placed at areas where your vision is blocked on either side, and they're never placed in big open areas where nothing's blocking your vision.

Now, portals might not be your only problem. Can you post a screenshot with portals turned off?

ive got work to do removing portals

If that's your map with detail brushes turned off, then you haven't made enough brushes detail.

Some examples:

- I see a stone wall to the left there, next to the graveyard. The wall has little fancy things at the ends where the road goes through it. Those should be detail, as well as the trim along the top of the wall, because they're not going to significantly block anyone's vision. Now, unless there are portals against the wall itself (and there shouldn't be unless the wall is high enough to block your vision even while standing), the entire wall should be detailed.

- Roofs don't block your vision significantly. Make the roofs detail - especially fancy roofs which have little hangovers at the edges. If this leaves your buildings open at the top, then either have a single flat brush which isn't detail to fill in that opening, or just put a portal over the opening.

- There's something in the middle there that looks like a steeple. That entire thing should probably be detail. If there are portals which are adjacent to it, then at least make the top part of it detail.

- Window shutters, stairs, and fences should be detail.

- If those sidewalks are brushes, they should be detail.

Now, that's just what I can see. As a rule of thumb, when detail brushes have been turned off, your map should look *extremely* blocky. There should be hardly any diagonal brushes (only in places where the map itself is very diagonally structured).

Take a look at the difference in Dawnville when detail brushes (and patches) are hidden: http://www.slimeland.com/misc/dawnvilledetail.jpg The result is nothing but flat walls with square holes (which are filled with portals that aren't shown). If I had made the map, I would have also made that curved wall on the left detail, as well as the triangular roof in the background. When detail brushes are turned off, all that remains should be simple, simple, simple geometry that tells the game engine how to section off your map into different areas.

no no this with everything on with off all u see is outside walls of houses. trying compile now with outside portals taken out. 6 hrs now. lol

edited on Oct. 24, 2005 07:58 pm by [DaDs]roglsa