Portal optimization in Hammer

[Vino]

I made a video:

Hope it helps.

[Ken Chan]

It's a good and helpful, keep up the good work!

[opti2000]

I just use func_viscluster to set everything manually.

[Vino]

func_viscluster is helpful but not a replacement for minding your portals.

[taurus]

Excellent tutorial!

Personally I prefer to use the old way with GLView though and fly around the 3D space. That way I get better understanding of the environment. The blue thick lines I feel clutter up things to much.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Glview

[nub]

A decent tutorial. I feel like you could do a little more in the way of planning so that you have a better flow and you present knowledge in an orderly fashion. The idea and everything was explained, but it was a little clumsy. Here's what I would have done personally:

Start with that same first room with the table and pillars, but without the portals loaded. Give the viewers a brief introduction about what the tutorial will be discussing, what portals essentially do in Source, and talk about how you need to constantly manage them as you build a map to ensure good performance and overall tidy level design. When you disabled all the visgroups besides the basic geometry, you explained "This is how Source sees levels." That part was great, but I feel like you should have shown that from the beginning. I'd do that next. After the demonstration, enable all the visgroups again, except for models and clip brushes. But explain to the viewers that they don't serve a purpose in the tutorial and only get in the way.

After that, load the portals in so viewers can have a visual example of them. While doing this, explain how loading them is done (compiling without leaks produces a portal file, where to go to load them, etc.) so that they won't have any questions afterward.

Once the portals are loaded, point out how messy things look in their current state. Point out the main culprits behind the messy portals (the tables and pillars), and remind viewers about how Source sees levels. Talk about player visibility and such and how the pillars and tables do not provide any kind of useful portals for the engine to work with. After that, bring out func_detailing and talk about its purpose, then demonstrate it on one of the tables. Recompile and reload the portals to show the outcome. Then go ahead and func_detail the rest of the culprits in the room, then recompile and reload the portals. Show how clean the room now looks then move on to the hallway with the stairs.

With the stairs, I would have made two different flights of stairs. One using the "noob" method of several flat brushes next to each other that create stairs, and then another flight using the proper method of an inclined plane brush with separate brushes for the steps on top; comprised of triangular brushes. Point out the messy portals the crappy stairs are generating, and how much cleaner the proper stairs look. Func_detail the crappy stairs and recompile. Point out the leak the stairs created and show the viewers why this happened and explain it to them briefly. I would also have a custom vis group with a proper set of stairs to replace the crappy stairs. Remove the crappy stairs and enable the visgroup with the proper stairs (just make sure the map is sealed at this point). Make sure to briefly explain that to them as well. Show them the process of making proper stairs; how the inclined brush serves to seal the map and that the step brushes on top of it should be func_detailed so they don't generate portals. Recompile and reload the portals to show how clean it all looks. Move on to the next room.

From here, simply point out culprit brushes and start func_detailing them. Reminding viewers how Source sees maps. Once you've cleaned up the room a good amount, recompile and reload the portals and show the newly tidied up map. End.


I hope that helps you with future video tutorials. Just a little more planning and you'll have some really concise and informative tutorials.

[Vino]

Thanks, I certainly could have spent more time planning the video. It was a quick and dirty job since I had other things I want to get done, but I like your thoughts. Maybe you should make a video? Seems like you know what you're doing.

[Knights]

I was happy with this video because it certainly helps others but where's the hint/skip brushes?

[Armageddon]

Good explanation. But hint/skip brushes are the most important for optimizing portals.

[nub]

Thanks, I certainly could have spent more time planning the video. It was a quick and dirty job since I had other things I want to get done, but I like your thoughts. Maybe you should make a video? Seems like you know what you're doing.

I figured you did it on a whim, but I decided to post all that to give you some feedback regardless. Hope it helps.

I'm honestly not super skilled with Hammer, especially these days. I haven't mapped in probably over a year. However, that will most likely change once I start college next year.

I COULD make my own video, but as far as advanced optimization goes, I never truly mastered handling portals and such. Func_detailing is an extremely basic form of optimization which anyone can perfect for the most part, whereas hint/skip brushes are one of the main tools for optimizing that take quite a while to master. I personally never got to that point. I was pretty good with areaportals and areaportalwindows though. :0


But keep it up man. I think that you have the chops for video tutorials. If you carefully plan them out, I'm sure you can come up with some solid tutorials.