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Topic: Stubborn sparklies???

surgeon62
The Afflicted

Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 573

Posted: 04-23-2005 08:41 PM

I am trying to fix sparklies in several locations in my map. However, there are several places where I think I have done what should fix the sparklies (thanks for the help Anwulf), but they are still there. Here is an in-game shot showing one of the problem spots.

Here is a shot from the editor with the patch hidden to show the caulk behind it.

Is there something I missed here?

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axbaby
axbaby

Joined: 22 Dec 1999
Posts: 17369

Posted: 04-23-2005 09:53 PM

if you split that right patch in 2 ,cap it then join it with a thin 2 unit sliver of caulk would that work ?

from the editor pic it seems like you have made some mistakes like that big ol caulk brush joining the 2 patches.

wouldn't an end cap replace that brush if you used 2 bevel's?

too hard to tell what you have done from the pic

you must be just as drunk if you understand me .

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surgeon62
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Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 573

Posted: 04-24-2005 08:25 PM

Here is another editor shot that shows how I made this whole little bridge section. I'm still learning, so let me know what is the best way to do something like this.

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axbaby
axbaby

Joined: 22 Dec 1999
Posts: 17369

Posted: 04-24-2005 09:00 PM

thin caulk brushes
a total of 4 caulk brushes ..maybe 5 is sparklies joining 2 smaller patches

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obsidian
I'm the dude!

Joined: 04 Feb 2002
Posts: 12498

Posted: 04-25-2005 07:39 AM

Miter, miter, miter! Not only does it reduce the number of tris in your map, but it also does wonders in reducing the occurance of sparklies.

On patches, never intersect a patch (or brush for that matter) at the midpoint of an edge, it is sure to cause sparklies. 12 tris on top, 12 tris on the sides of the platform, I'm not counting the patch subdivisions but you will save some tris there too.

Try something like this instead. 11 tris on top, 4 tris on the sides, much less tris on the patches, unlikely to have problems with sparklies.

Good luck.

Edit: that first image should say bad... edge of other PATCH. Textbox was too small to contain all that text.

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surgeon62
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Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 573

Posted: 04-25-2005 08:26 AM

Thanks to all for the help.

Obsidian, how did you create the patches in your redone version? They don't look like any I've done before.

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obsidian
I'm the dude!

Joined: 04 Feb 2002
Posts: 12498

Posted: 04-25-2005 08:47 AM

I just created a 3x3 patch and edited the control points:

Create a brush and press SHIFT+P > in the menu that pops up select width 3, height 3 > then press V and the control points appear > select and drag the control points to resemble the arrangement shown below.

I didn't save the map file I was working on before, so I'm just painting the control points over the image.

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Hr.O
brushmangler

Joined: 11 Jul 2000
Posts: 3760

Posted: 04-26-2005 09:54 AM

When you're making a flyover like that, it best to make a fully enclosed box out of the patches. So not only make top, bottom and two sides but also the head- and tail ends. If you forget those, you're bound to meet with mister roundingof error aka sparklies.

Hr.O

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surgeon62
The Afflicted

Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 573

Posted: 04-27-2005 07:28 AM

Are you saying make the end patches even if they will not be visible?

When you do this, do you use the thicken command or do you do them by hand from a simple patch?

Thx

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Fjoggs
Old Skool'

Joined: 02 May 2002
Posts: 5230

Posted: 04-27-2005 08:31 AM

Thicken is evil, use patch meshes.

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obsidian
I'm the dude!

Joined: 04 Feb 2002
Posts: 12498

Posted: 04-27-2005 01:53 PM

I don't know about making the ends of patches... I've never had to do that.

Thicken, hollow and subtract are evil. Don't use them.

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Plan C
Gibblet

Joined: 09 Apr 2005
Posts: 13

Posted: 04-29-2005 09:15 AM

obsidian wrote:
I don't know about making the ends of patches... I've never had to do that...

Never heard of this method, either.

Care to elucidate, Hr. O?

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surgeon62
The Afflicted

Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 573

Posted: 04-29-2005 08:00 PM

I finally got a chance to try Obsidian's suggestion and it worked great. No sparklies.

Is there a place somewhere with some examples of the best ways to construct shapes of medium complexity from brushes and patches? It would be good to be able to look at editor shots like the one Obsidian posted for examples.

Just a thought.

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surgeon62
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Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 573

Posted: 04-30-2005 09:38 PM

OK, Here's another problem spot (same spot from 2 different angles):

I know now that I shouldn't have the patches set up the way they are here, but it is not obvious to me how I can do this one differently.

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surgeon62
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Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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Posted: 05-02-2005 11:31 AM

If anyone has an idea on how to better construct what is shown in the pics above, your help will be greatly appreciated.

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obsidian
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Posted: 05-02-2005 06:51 PM

Not hard, certainly not more so than the first one. All you have to do is move a few vertex points around.

Also, see Q's Sample Map Thread, 4 pages of optimization fun:
http://www.quake3world.c.../20020703-6-020488.html
http://www.quake3world.c...0020703-6-020488-2.html
http://www.quake3world.c...0020703-6-020488-3.html
http://www.quake3world.c...0020703-6-020488-4.html

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surgeon62
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Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 573

Posted: 05-02-2005 07:17 PM

Thanks again.

I tried the links and they came up dead. It looks like they are actually pointing to the text that shows for the link including the "..." part. I'll check back later if you get a chance to fix them.

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Todtsteltzer
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Joined: 28 Nov 2002
Posts: 634

Posted: 05-02-2005 11:15 PM

These should work...

Q's sample map thread (4 pages):
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 20488.html
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 488-2.html
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 488-3.html
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 488-4.html

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obsidian
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Joined: 04 Feb 2002
Posts: 12498

Posted: 05-03-2005 05:58 AM

Oops, sorry... I cut and pasted them out of another thread but forgot about the "..."

Thanks Todtsteltzer for the updated links.

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Hr.O
brushmangler

Joined: 11 Jul 2000
Posts: 3760

Posted: 05-31-2005 10:21 AM

Plan C wrote:
obsidian wrote:
I don't know about making the ends of patches... I've never had to do that...

Never heard of this method, either.

Care to elucidate, Hr. O?

trail and error.
I once tried to make a flyover outof patches and brushes, however i tried there were spraklies around the seams where the brushes met the patches. only when i capped them they disapeared. Anyways those four tris (two for each cap) don't make you bleed enough to not better be save then sorry.

Hr.O
ps. sorry for the delay, it took me a while to stumble over this thread again.

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surgeon62
The Afflicted

Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 573

Posted: 05-31-2005 07:05 PM

Well, since this thread has been resurected...

I am still having aproblem with this. I re-did the bridge and it looks like this in the editor:

I thought everything was fine. However, I came across a post that recommended looking for sparklies in 16-bit mode. When I did that I found this:

This is between 2 brushes. Are these even sparklies?

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$NulL
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Joined: 27 Mar 2002
Posts: 793

Posted: 05-31-2005 11:34 PM

It looks like z-fighting, you should have caulk on those inside faces.

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seremtan
Etile

Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 34898

Posted: 06-01-2005 04:41 AM

Another suggestion is: don't use patches for anything ever. If you need to make a curved structure, do it in gmax or 3DS with smoothing groups then export to md3. Much 1337er and no sparkly shit.

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obsidian
I'm the dude!

Joined: 04 Feb 2002
Posts: 12498

Posted: 06-01-2005 07:24 AM

seremtan wrote:
Another suggestion is: don't use patches for anything ever. If you need to make a curved structure, do it in gmax or 3DS with smoothing groups then export to md3. Much 1337er and no sparkly shit.

To be truly "1337", it's better to learn how to <i>properly</i> use patches rather than using some other workaround method as a way to avoid solving the actual problem in question.

Brushes, patches and models are all just tools that we use to build levels. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Simply substituting one object for another when faced with a difficulty isn't addressing the issue, nor does it necessarily mean that it will fix it either. Improperly constructed models are just as likely (if not more likely due to user error) to result in sparkly problems.

So I would recommend understanding what causes sparklies and avoid running into such problems in the first place. Sparklies can be most easily avoided by using caulk, and by making sure that vertex points don't intersect an edge without splitting it.

surgeon62:
-Make sure that you caulk all unseen faces between those brushes.
-Run brush-cleanup periodically, just in case.
-When creating mitered objects, it's best not to use edge or vertex manipulation. Use the clipper tool instead.

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Plan C
Gibblet

Joined: 09 Apr 2005
Posts: 13

Posted: 06-01-2005 11:29 AM

Judging by your first pic (05-31), I can't understand how you would expect not to run into sparklie-problems.

You've got patches run into and overlapping other patches and brushes.

No offence, but that's a real slop-fest, right there.

First off, have vertices of patches and brushes join in a neat way.

Thén we can discuss how patches can stíll be fickle and cause sparklies when, seemingly, everything was done in an orderly, by-the-book, fashion.

More to the point:

I'd suggest broadening the jump-shute's wall so it matches the curved walkways.

Also make these curved walkways' height match adjacent brush/patch structure.

I realise that this would involve a major overhaul of adjacent structures, but IMO it's the only way to go.

GL!

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Plan C
Gibblet

Joined: 09 Apr 2005
Posts: 13

Posted: 06-01-2005 11:39 AM

Hr.O wrote:
ps. sorry for the delay, it took me a while to stumble over this thread again.

Hehe, np, I don't frequent here as much as I used to, either.

Stills seems a strange and 'hacky' solution, though...oh well.

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surgeon62
The Afflicted

Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 573

Posted: 06-01-2005 01:08 PM

obsidian wrote:
surgeon62:
-Make sure that you caulk all unseen faces between those brushes.
-Run brush-cleanup periodically, just in case.
-When creating mitered objects, it's best not to use edge or vertex manipulation. Use the clipper tool instead.

Normally, I would have checked for caulking, but I thought that I turned on the clipper feature that would automatically caulk the adjacent unseen faces when you split a brush. I was either mistaken or I don't completely understand how this feature works. There are uncaulked faces on at least one of the brushes that I clipped. I will fix this and see what happens.

Thanks again for the help.

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seremtan
Etile

Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 34898

Posted: 06-02-2005 05:47 AM

obsidian wrote:
seremtan wrote:
Another suggestion is: don't use patches for anything ever. If you need to make a curved structure, do it in gmax or 3DS with smoothing groups then export to md3. Much 1337er and no sparkly shit.

To be truly "1337", it's better to learn how to <i>properly</i> use patches rather than using some other workaround method as a way to avoid solving the actual problem in question.

Brushes, patches and models are all just tools that we use to build levels. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Simply substituting one object for another when faced with a difficulty isn't addressing the issue, nor does it necessarily mean that it will fix it either. Improperly constructed models are just as likely (if not more likely due to user error) to result in sparkly problems.

So I would recommend understanding what causes sparklies and avoid running into such problems in the first place. Sparklies can be most easily avoided by using caulk, and by making sure that vertex points don't intersect an edge without splitting it.

That's all very well, but using patches is itself just one solution to a problem of dealing with curved structures in Q3A, and it isn't always the best solution. Clearly, if he's totally committed to using a patch here, then he has to deal with the sparklies. I was just suggesting something from outside the box he might like to try instead.

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Quake3World.com | Forum Index | Level Editing & Modeling

Here is another editor shot that shows how I made this whole little bridge section. I'm still learning, so let me know what is the best way to do something like this.

thin caulk brushes a total of 4 caulk brushes ..maybe 5 is sparklies joining 2 smaller patches

Thanks to all for the help. Obsidian, how did you create the patches in your redone version? They don't look like any I've done before.

When you're making a flyover like that, it best to make a fully enclosed box out of the patches. So not only make top, bottom and two sides but also the head- and tail ends. If you forget those, you're bound to meet with mister roundingof error aka sparklies. Hr.O

Are you saying make the end patches even if they will not be visible? When you do this, do you use the thicken command or do you do them by hand from a simple patch? Thx

Thicken is evil, use patch meshes.

I don't know about making the ends of patches... I've never had to do that. Thicken, hollow and subtract are evil. Don't use them.

obsidian wrote:I don't know about making the ends of patches... I've never had to do that... Never heard of this method, either. Care to elucidate, Hr. O?

OK, Here's another problem spot (same spot from 2 different angles): I know now that I shouldn't have the patches set up the way they are here, but it is not obvious to me how I can do this one differently.

If anyone has an idea on how to better construct what is shown in the pics above, your help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again. I tried the links and they came up dead. It looks like they are actually pointing to the text that shows for the link including the "..." part. I'll check back later if you get a chance to fix them.

These should work... Q's sample map thread (4 pages): http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 20488.html http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 488-2.html http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 488-3.html http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 488-4.html

Oops, sorry... I cut and pasted them out of another thread but forgot about the "..." Thanks Todtsteltzer for the updated links.

It looks like z-fighting, you should have caulk on those inside faces.

Another suggestion is: don't use patches for anything ever. If you need to make a curved structure, do it in gmax or 3DS with smoothing groups then export to md3. Much 1337er and no sparkly shit.

Hr.O wrote:ps. sorry for the delay, it took me a while to stumble over this thread again. Hehe, np, I don't frequent here as much as I used to, either. Stills seems a strange and 'hacky' solution, though...oh well.

thin caulk brushes
a total of 4 caulk brushes ..maybe 5 is sparklies joining 2 smaller patches

Thanks to all for the help.

Obsidian, how did you create the patches in your redone version? They don't look like any I've done before.

When you're making a flyover like that, it best to make a fully enclosed box out of the patches. So not only make top, bottom and two sides but also the head- and tail ends. If you forget those, you're bound to meet with mister roundingof error aka sparklies.

Hr.O

Are you saying make the end patches even if they will not be visible?

When you do this, do you use the thicken command or do you do them by hand from a simple patch?

Thx

I don't know about making the ends of patches... I've never had to do that.

Thicken, hollow and subtract are evil. Don't use them.

obsidian wrote:
I don't know about making the ends of patches... I've never had to do that...

Never heard of this method, either.

Care to elucidate, Hr. O?

OK, Here's another problem spot (same spot from 2 different angles):

I know now that I shouldn't have the patches set up the way they are here, but it is not obvious to me how I can do this one differently.

Thanks again.

I tried the links and they came up dead. It looks like they are actually pointing to the text that shows for the link including the "..." part. I'll check back later if you get a chance to fix them.

These should work...

Q's sample map thread (4 pages):
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 20488.html
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 488-2.html
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 488-3.html
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 488-4.html

Oops, sorry... I cut and pasted them out of another thread but forgot about the "..."

Thanks Todtsteltzer for the updated links.

Hr.O wrote:
ps. sorry for the delay, it took me a while to stumble over this thread again.

Hehe, np, I don't frequent here as much as I used to, either.

Stills seems a strange and 'hacky' solution, though...oh well.