Doh! Forgot to unhide most of map

[Baggs]

I was working on the basement of a house in a map I'm making in Episode One, so I had everything hidden except the basement brushes, and the floor of the story above. I made some changes, saved them, and wanted to test them in-game, but in my haste, I forgot to unhide the rest of the level.

Needless to say, when I ran the map, it was just the basement and the hall of mirror sky. I tried loading an earlier save state, and the game crashed. I went back to the editor, unhid everything, saved, and restarted Hammer, but now I can't even get the level to load at all.

It seems to get hung up on building visleafs for longer than usual, even when I set all the run map settings to 'fast'. And then once the game boots up, it gets stuck on "Loading."

Have I screwed up royally, or is there an easy fix to get the game running again?

Thanks!

[Major Banter]

Chuck us the compile log please.

You can save yourself a crash by simply checking "don't run game on compile". Don't need it.

[Baggs]

Will do. I'm at a different computer now, but I'll post it up tonight.

[nub]

From what you've said, it sounds like the basement area you were working on is conflicting with the rest of your map that you had hidden the whole time, and now that you've tried compiling the map with all your visgroups enabled, the issue is showing itself. I'm guessing it'll be some usual error in the compile log that can be fixed easily. Hopefully, at least.

All I can say is, you won't "break" your map (in Hammer) by accidentally compiling it without enabling all your visgroups. Even if you save the VMF with some of the visgroups disabled, they won't get deleted or anything, and they'll be there when you load the VMF up again (still disabled). I'm guessing you already knew this, but I figured I'd mention it anyway just in case you were worried.

Visgroups are awesome though. If you use them right, you can precisely control what you want to compile while testing so you don't have to compile every last thing in your map every time you want to run a test on something. In other words their sole purpose isn't just to make it easier to navigate your map.

Just be careful when you disable a large number of visgroups, otherwise you might "map in to" areas with objects or brushes that aren't showing because their visgroup(s) are disabled, thus causing issues.

[Baggs]

Just be careful when you disable a large number of visgroups, otherwise you might "map in to" areas with objects or brushes that aren't showing because their visgroup(s) are disabled, thus causing issues.

So, in essence, I may have "built over" something that was already there but invisible, and it's causing a conflict when I try to render the map?

[Major Banter]

Just be careful when you disable a large number of visgroups, otherwise you might "map in to" areas with objects or brushes that aren't showing because their visgroup(s) are disabled, thus causing issues.

So, in essence, I may have "built over" something that was already there but invisible, and it's causing a conflict when I try to render the map?

No. You have to re-enable those groups to have them in the compile. Building over them has no effect until both groups 'exist', so to speak, and are thus able to conflict.

Even then, you're going to have limited problems - there are far more common things generally, such as borked areaportals or func_detailed displacements.

Edit: I mean, imagine trying to untangle half your map from the other other half...erugh. Stuff of nightmares.

[Baggs]

Here's the compile log:


** Executing...
** Command: "c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\sourcesdk\bin\source2009\bin\vbsp.exe"
** Parameters: -game "c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\half-life 2 episode one\episodic" "C:\HammerAutosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.vmf"

Valve Software - vbsp.exe (Sep 15 2011)
2 threads
materialPath: c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\half-life 2 episode one\episodic\materials
Loading C:\HammerAutosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.vmf
Could not locate 'GameData' key in c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\half-life 2 episode one\episodic\gameinfo.txt
Patching WVT material: maps/jeniferst_nostairrails/nature/blenddirtgrass008b_wvt_patch
fixing up env_cubemap materials on brush sides...
ProcessBlock_Thread: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
ProcessBlock_Thread: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Processing areas...done (0)
Building Faces...done (0)
Chop Details...done (0)
Find Visible Detail Sides...
Merged 770 detail faces...done (0)
Merging details...done (0)
FixTjuncs...
PruneNodes...
WriteBSP...
done (0)
writing C:\HammerAutosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.prt...Building visibility clusters...
done (1)
Creating default LDR cubemaps for env_cubemap using skybox materials:
skybox/sky_day01_01*.vmt
! Run buildcubemaps in the engine to get the correct cube maps.
Creating default HDR cubemaps for env_cubemap using skybox materials:
skybox/sky_day01_01*.vmt
! Run buildcubemaps in the engine to get the correct cube maps.
Finding displacement neighbors...
Finding lightmap sample positions...
Displacement Alpha : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Building Physics collision data...
done (0) (566682 bytes)
Placing detail props : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Compacting texture/material tables...
Reduced 461 texinfos to 348
Reduced 80 texdatas to 74 (2275 bytes to 2001)
Writing C:\HammerAutosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.bsp
4 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: "c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\sourcesdk\bin\source2009\bin\vvis.exe"
** Parameters: -game "c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\half-life 2 episode one\episodic" -fast "C:\HammerAutosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails"

Valve Software - vvis.exe (Sep 15 2011)
fastvis = true
2 threads
reading c:\hammerautosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.bsp
reading c:\hammerautosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.prt
1920 portalclusters
6053 numportals
BasePortalVis: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (3)
Optimized: 169342 visible clusters (0.00%)
Total clusters visible: 2223715
Average clusters visible: 1158
Building PAS...
Average clusters audible: 1911
visdatasize:849567 compressed from 921600
writing c:\hammerautosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.bsp
4 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: "c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\sourcesdk\bin\source2009\bin\vrad.exe"
** Parameters: -game "c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\half-life 2 episode one\episodic" -noextra "C:\HammerAutosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails"

Valve Software - vrad.exe SSE (Sep 15 2011)

Valve Radiosity Simulator
2 threads
[Reading texlights from 'lights.rad']
[48 texlights parsed from 'lights.rad']

Loading c:\hammerautosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.bsp
Error! Invalid VTX file checksum: -491986493, expected -508763741 "models/props_interiors/lightsconce02.dx80.vtx"
Setting up ray-trace acceleration structure... Done (2.02 seconds)
7652 faces
1 degenerate faces
574030 square feet [82660336.00 square inches]
13 Displacements
5486 Square Feet [790031.19 Square Inches]
7651 patches before subdivision
40705 patches after subdivision
sun extent from map=0.034899
14 direct lights
BuildFacelights: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (7)
BuildVisLeafs: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (50)
transfers 7079678, max 1579
transfer lists: 54.0 megs
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #1 added RGB(234621, 185786, 87064)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #2 added RGB(100184, 73003, 28648)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #3 added RGB(59187, 37955, 11932)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #4 added RGB(38722, 21533, 5399)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #5 added RGB(25718, 12326, 2456)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #6 added RGB(17319, 7143, 1138)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #7 added RGB(11718, 4151, 531)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #8 added RGB(7967, 2423, 251)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #9 added RGB(5432, 1417, 120)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #10 added RGB(3713, 831, 58)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #11 added RGB(2543, 488, 28)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #12 added RGB(1744, 288, 14)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #13 added RGB(1198, 170, 7)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #14 added RGB(824, 100, 3)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #15 added RGB(567, 59, 2)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #16 added RGB(390, 35, 1)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #17 added RGB(269, 21, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #18 added RGB(185, 12, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #19 added RGB(128, 7, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #20 added RGB(88, 4, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #21 added RGB(61, 3, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #22 added RGB(42, 2, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #23 added RGB(29, 1, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #24 added RGB(20, 1, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #25 added RGB(14, 0, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #26 added RGB(10, 0, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #27 added RGB(7, 0, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #28 added RGB(5, 0, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #29 added RGB(3, 0, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #30 added RGB(2, 0, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (1)
Bounce #31 added RGB(2, 0, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #32 added RGB(1, 0, 0)
GatherLight: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (0)
Bounce #33 added RGB(1, 0, 0)
Build Patch/Sample Hash Table(s).....Done<0.0274 sec>
FinalLightFace: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (20)
FinalLightFace Done
Computing detail prop lighting : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
0 of 0 (0% of) surface lights went in leaf ambient cubes.
ThreadComputeLeafAmbient: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 (13)
Writing leaf ambient...done
Ready to Finish

Object names Objects/Maxobjs Memory / Maxmem Fullness
------------ --------------- --------------- --------
models 8/1024 384/49152 ( 0.8%)
brushes 1618/8192 19416/98304 (19.8%)
brushsides 10131/65536 81048/524288 (15.5%)
planes 3028/65536 60560/1310720 ( 4.6%)
vertexes 13384/65536 160608/786432 (20.4%)
nodes 3843/65536 122976/2097152 ( 5.9%)
texinfos 348/12288 25056/884736 ( 2.8%)
texdata 74/2048 2368/65536 ( 3.6%)
dispinfos 13/0 2288/0 ( 0.0%)
disp_verts 1053/0 21060/0 ( 0.0%)
disp_tris 1664/0 3328/0 ( 0.0%)
disp_lmsamples 16088/0 16088/0 ( 0.0%)
faces 7652/65536 428512/3670016 (11.7%)
hdr faces 0/65536 0/3670016 ( 0.0%)
origfaces 4237/65536 237272/3670016 ( 6.5%)
leaves 3852/65536 123264/2097152 ( 5.9%)
leaffaces 9391/65536 18782/131072 (14.3%)
leafbrushes 3986/65536 7972/131072 ( 6.1%)
areas 2/256 16/2048 ( 0.8%)
surfedges 54866/512000 219464/2048000 (10.7%)
edges 32718/256000 130872/1024000 (12.8%)
LDR worldlights 14/8192 1232/720896 ( 0.2%)
HDR worldlights 0/8192 0/720896 ( 0.0%)
leafwaterdata 0/32768 0/393216 ( 0.0%)
waterstrips 898/32768 8980/327680 ( 2.7%)
waterverts 0/65536 0/786432 ( 0.0%)
waterindices 16284/65536 32568/131072 (24.8%)
cubemapsamples 0/1024 0/16384 ( 0.0%)
overlays 0/512 0/180224 ( 0.0%)
LDR lightdata [variable] 1461636/0 ( 0.0%)
HDR lightdata [variable] 0/0 ( 0.0%)
visdata [variable] 849567/16777216 ( 5.1%)
entdata [variable] 23917/393216 ( 6.1%)
LDR ambient table 3852/65536 15408/262144 ( 5.9%)
HDR ambient table 3852/65536 15408/262144 ( 5.9%)
LDR leaf ambient 8956/65536 250768/1835008 (13.7%)
HDR leaf ambient 3852/65536 107856/1835008 ( 5.9%)
occluders 0/0 0/0 ( 0.0%)
occluder polygons 0/0 0/0 ( 0.0%)
occluder vert ind 0/0 0/0 ( 0.0%)
detail props [variable] 1/5768 ( 0.0%)
dtl prp lght [variable] 1/84 ( 1.2%)
HDR dtl prp lght [variable] 1/4 (25.0%)
static props [variable] 1/8664 ( 0.0%)
pakfile [variable] 213218/0 ( 0.0%)
physics [variable] 566682/4194304 (13.5%)
physics terrain [variable] 5843/1048576 ( 0.6%)

Level flags = 0

Total triangle count: 22622
Writing c:\hammerautosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.bsp
1 minute, 43 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: Copy File
** Parameters: "C:\HammerAutosave\JeniferSt_nostairrails.bsp" "c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\half-life 2 episode one\episodic\maps\JeniferSt_nostairrails.bsp"


** Executing...
** Command: c:\program files\steam\steam.exe
** Parameters: -applaunch 380 -game "c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\half-life 2 episode one\episodic" -toconsole -dev -console +sv_lan 1 +map "JeniferSt_nostairrails"

[nub]

Huh...the Interlopers error checker didn't pick anything up. Just mentioned how you were running vvis in fast mode. This itself can cause errors, including unexpected crashing. The fast vvis might be the cause of your crashing. Do a compile with full vvis, and once it starts to hang, just cancel the compile and post the log from it. Also, you might as well get familiar with this page. It's your best friend.

Have you tried deleting the compiled BSP from the maps folder, then recompiling? I'm fairly certain that sometimes when you do a new compile of a map, it can retain data from the old BSP of previous compile, and this can cause errors like not being able to load the map; or the map crashing as soon as it finishes loading.

For instance, you can do a full compile of your map with just LDR lighting, then later do another compile with ONLY vrad enabled and ONLY the HDR pass, and this will simply update the previous BSP. It's useful for when you're nearing the final stages of your map but need to run tests with full lighting, but aren't concerned about the HDR yet. That way you don't have to wait through two whole lighting passes just to run a test.

I think this additive nature only pertains to vrad. I don't believe it works the same for vbsp or vvis.

[ErikKiller]

If you know the VisGroup that might be fucking you over then hide everything else and move it away from the overlapping spot.

[Major Banter]

"Could not locate 'GameData' key in c:\program files\steam\steamapps\darthfootball\half-life 2 episode one\episodic\gameinfo.txt"

I wonder, I wonder, are you being plagued by the same issues that other users have - are you using the Steampipe beta?

[Baggs]

I wonder, I wonder, are you being plagued by the same issues that other users have - are you using the Steampipe beta?

I haven't opted into that, but Steam/Hammer/Source/HL2 has been acting particularly finicky lately. Lots of "registry in use by another process" errors, crashes, just flat out not starting, stuff like that.

I believe nub's suggestion that the old BSP was still loading was the problem, as I've been able to load it since. The only weird thing last night was that HL2 crashed when I tried to save a game state in the updated map.

I'll post if I have any other issues, but in any case, thanks everyone for the feedback. This forum is awesome. And I can see I'll be getting a lot of use out of that error checker!

[Major Banter]

Well, this is what we get for working with Source eh?

[LordDz]

Never run vvis on fast. Skip vrad if you want, it's just for lighting, but vvis on fast tends to create problems.