SF's Hammer Tutorials - Optimization 2: Hint & Skip

[Hunter666MJ]

Thank you dude.

[ViperStarFilms]

Hey Silwerfish, great tutorial! But I have a problem. When I press load portal file it doesn't load it, I've ran the map seceral times but when I browse for the .prt file it's not there. This hasn't happened to me in all my maps, so I don't know how to fix it. Pease help me as i'd prefer to see it in the editor before looking at it ingame- Thanks!

[Silwerfish]

@ViperStarFilms That's weird, I haven't run into that problem before... I can imagine this might happen if there's a leak in your level, have you made sure your level is not leaked?

[ViperStarFilms]

@Silwerfish No actually, good idea thanks.

[mrnicosable]

Sry but i don't understand the difference betwen this and the areaportal texture. Can you help me?

[Silwerfish]

@mrnicosable The difference is actually quite large. The areaportal texture is an *entity* in the game that can be controlled using inputs/outputs to open or close it. An areaportal does not show any entities that you can't see through the areaportal. Areaportals also take some performance, so you need to make sure it's worth it.

Hint is only used to chop up the level in leafs to determine what will be rendered depending on where the camera is. This method is also pretty much free to use.

[mrnicosable]

@Silwerfish Ok, I understand, thx!

[Zupernova91]

Thanks for this, now I know how to optimize my maps :)

[SleeperJ]

hi, i was wondering what if you apply the hint texture to 2 sides instead of one does it make a difference? or does it just not make the brush inactive? and would it be better to use area portals instead of the hint and skip or is it situational? lol sorry for all the questions but thanks for takin the time to read it all lol

[Silwerfish]

@SleeperJ I think you can use hint on more than one side if you so wish. Area portals are better than hint in some situations.

[hatrer]

I'm having a problem with a "mall" map I'm doing. It has no portals or "leafs" so it lags majorly.

I render with all settings on "normal" but hammer wont generate portal file :o

[Silwerfish]

@hatrer That has happened to me as well! I have no idea what causes it, sorry! Just make 100% sure there are no leaks or other errors in your map and if there are no errors, try asking on some forums. I don't know how to solve that anyhow, sorry!

[chap1400]

@hatrer when hammer fails to create a .prt file its because u have a leak in the map. goto Map > Load pointfile and hammer will draw a red line to where ur leak is. When all the leaks are filled, the area portals will compile and a portal file will be created. Hope that helps!

[HUMANCONDlTION]

I don't have a default portalfile. It asks me to load a file when I click the option to "load portalfile"

What do I do?

[Silwerfish]

@HUMANCONDlTION Are you sure you have compiled the map before loading the portal file? The portal file is generated when compiling so it can't find it if you haven't compiled it.

[Sktannagade]

What does hint`? What difference does it do to your map?

[Silwerfish]

@Sktannagade Proper use of hint/skip will make your map less demanding (more optimized). It's an optimization technique.

It won't change the gameplay in your map at all.

[Geckoinc2]

I am having an awsome day

[Silwerfish]

@Geckoinc2 Mission accomplished.. B)

[JakkHack]

Thanks. Have an awesome day =D

[raphu604]

I'm making a map right now, but somehow the hints don't work, they don't hide anything.. why is that?

[Silwerfish]

@raphu604 You can use the debugging tools to maybe find out why that is. Also, I did this tutorial in Half-Life 2 since it for some reason didn't work for me in Ep2.

[xThaWolfx]

great tutorial!

This one actually makes sense to me xD

[fvn13]

Thank you very much!

You sound extremly swedish!

[Silwerfish]

@fvn13 It was my pleasure.

I AM extremely Swedish. ;)

[kabobularproductions]

i like your tutorials more than 3kliksphilip's

[jckreilly]

hows about one on water

[Silwerfish]

@jckreilly I'll add it to the request list, thanks!

[ALIENwoods]

THis is a good tutorial video, about optimalization, i guess it's better than 3klikkphilips' :)

[Mariuspersem]

make an Super-advanced Optimization, this was too easy for me xD

[Silwerfish]

@Mariuspersem There's a lot of things to cover when it comes to optimizing. I'm thinking about doing tutorials about occluders, fog, area portals and those area portal-like ones you can put in windows.

Anything not on that list you think I should cover when it comes to optimizing?

[Mariuspersem]

@Silwerfish well, I though those black textures in windows

[Silwerfish]

@Mariuspersem Yeah, area portal-like thingies you put in windows to stop them from rendering when you're too far away.

[transformer5622]

@Silwerfish i like where this is going but is there any way if i have a large open space that i can have it not do visleafes everywhere. example flatgrass

[Silwerfish]

@transformer5622 Yeah there is in Ep2 engine, use an entity called func_viscluster.

[R1zeeK]

Nice one!

[00vitality00]

nice finaly i got how this hint/skip thing really works thx

cincematics next time pls

[Bekey2nd]

I have to agree with turb030031993

[Silwerfish]

@Bekey2nd @turb030031993 Great to hear guys, this was the hardest tutorial to make so far so I wasn't sure it was fully understandable, thanks for the feedback. :)

[turb030031993]

As always, great tutorial :D

Finally, a hint\skip tutorial I can understand :)

Thanks :)

[JorshItUp]

Awesome tutorial.

[daniel10166]

thanks man, very handy to know