Ok I was doing a ‘final’ compile in VBCT and VVIS was stuck at the exact same point for 17 hours.
Everything works fine on a ‘fast’ compile, but not on a ‘final.’
Any ideas?
This is usually caused by lots of details or complex shapes in a map. A way to speed up compiling is grouping complex shapes together as a func_detail. You should keep VVIS on normal on your final compile, but complex or large maps sometimes take days to compile. And finally, I’m sure you know this, use Nodraw on all non-visible faces.
Well I’m good about nodraws, and I have a few func_details, although now thinking about it I should do that to all of the sets of stairs in my map… and I have hint boxes so I hope that helps too. Still going super slow…
I tried to compile a very large map once, it took about 3 days to finish, I just left hammer running in the background whenever I did something else, it takes time, you need patience.
the sad thing is, this is just a major beta build, not an actual final release build.
Does “final” compile make the bsp file take up less space? right now it’s 25mb and I need that to go wayyyy down.
I’m not entirely sure on that one, but if you want to reduce file size, you may want to turn off HDR.
But HDR is real :[
Lol but seriously, how significant is that to filesize?
Well HDR makes all the lighting parts of the render run twice, i’m not entirely sure but lighting takes up signifigant space.
Do you know if making tons of the geometry into func_details will be a good or bad thing?
Unless a brush blocks visibility to a large area, it should be func_detail. In general.
Damn ninjas. You never see 'em coming. 
alright, awesome. will do this!
Bumping 'cause I think I may have realized another issue.
My skybox is just that, a box, surrounding my entire map. I can only assume that’s not good at all. can anyone tell me if this is a big no-no like I suspect?
I haven’t mapped since Goldsrc, but I know it used to be. Putting a giant box around your map opens the entire outside of your map to vis.
Hm, well I’m trying to figure out how I’d go about fixing that…
Don’t worry, even Valve does that sometimes.
r u running 64 bit OS, or win 7. I have the same problem and I’m running win7 64bit. The only solution I found was to recompile and cross your fingers.
Nah, i’m on 32-bit xp.
Hmm, making all of my sets of staircases in the map has increased the compile speed noticeably (it’s still compiling though).
:fffuuu:
FUNC_DETAIL, NAAOOOOO
ok I turned on only the vis groups for the regular brushes and then I selected them all except for the ‘backbone’ of the map and turned the rest into func_details. it’s compiling now and it’s gone farther than ever before, in like 10 minutes. sooooo I’m excited xD