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How to use Hints and Skips
Difficulty: Intermediate |
| Category: CS:S > Mapping | Author(s): Pwn3r1001 |
Ever wonder what the hint texture is used for? Well it can in fact speed up compile times and improve FPS. You should first learn how visleaves work before you read this article. The link is here http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Visleaves.
So first I will tell you why and when you need to split these visleaves. Basically when your in the map and you have objects around a corner that you cannot see you don't want them to be rendered. Because as you know if you have too many objects in one leaf compiling will take longer and FPS will drop
That is where hints come into play. You want to place a simple brush with some sides textured with HINT and the rest with SKIP texture.
First look at the image taken from SIDE-view. There's two players on the left and pipes on the right. A wall is blocking the 2 players from seeing those pipes. Refer to screenshot 1
Now look at how this is divided into leaves. Refer to screenshot 2 . Although the pipes are on the other side of the wall vbsp.exe does not know how to divide the level into visleaves. Hence the name "hinting" .
Finally look at where the hint should be placed. Refer to screenshot 3 .
So now because we placed that hint texture there the pipes won't be visible until you enter the leave that the pipes are in(the purple one)
NOTE: BE CAREFUL WHICH FACE YOU TEXTURE WITH HINT, IN THE CASE ABOVE ONLY TEXTURE THE BOTTOM FACE(when seen from player's perspective)AND TEXTURE THE REST OF THEM WITH SKIP
Below are more examples of usage:
Refer to screenshot 4 It shows where the leafs are
Refer to screenshot 5 It shows where you place the hint.
NOTE: WHEN YOU ARE IN THE CORNER(in the green leaf)BOTH LEAFS WILL BE RENDERED FROM YOUR VIEW, THEREFORE THAT SIDE SHOULD BE TEXTURED SKIP
And some final examples below:
Refer to screenshot 6 .
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| Added: 12 months ago | Tags: hint, skip, tutorial, fast comile, fast loading, optimize |
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