Number of brushes (optimization VIS and BOTS)

[Fruity]

Good day.
I have a heater made (radiator) called as the name that I want to use in the map. Unfortunately, it is made of small brushes in a large number (about 97 brushes) and when it comes to the radiator itself (as one part of many), I think that it is too many brushes, and I want optimization (not necessarily strong), because the map will be large and quite open. Of course I will use the whole as a "detail" but I thought it was a large size "md3" model.
Using as a "detail" (if I remember) I limit the number of portals in the "VIS" compilation (fps goes up), but the number of brushes and faces is still high, which (I think) also matters ...
What can I do in this situation.

[Eraser]

You could replace the top grating with a single brush that's textured with a grate texture and use an alpha channel to mimick the holes.

[Fruity]

I thought about it too ... and I think I will

[Fruity]

Ok, something works, I just need to remind myself in the graphics program how good it is to cut objects.

[Fjoggs]

Covering the grates in bot clip will make the bot compiler see it as a single brush afaik.
For vis related issues, you just convert it to detail and use simpler brushes for the caulk hull/structural bits.

[Fruity]

Thanks for the tips, I do everything at once and will forget about the basics more than once.
Regarding the first sentence, do I need to extend the brush outside the brush area of the grille?
Can there be a "botclip" flush with the grid (to the grid)?

[Eraser]

Thanks for the tips, I do everything at once and will forget about the basics more than once.
Regarding the first sentence, do I need to extend the brush outside the brush area of the grille?
Can there be a "botclip" flush with the grid (to the grid)?

A little step back first.

A botclip is basically a normal brush with the common/botclip shader applied.
A botclip brush is the same as an ordinary playerclip brush, but it is only solid for bots, not for human players.
Just for completeness sake, a clip brush is a brush with the common/playerclip shader applied and this is an invisible brush that is solid to all players.

What you would normally do is wherever you have complex geometry, or just little angles or nooks or crannies that you don't want players to get stuck behind when moving, you just basically build new walls (or floors, or ceilings, or whatever) out of clip brushes so that the area a player can move through is "smooth". This improves the movement experience for players, because you don't get stuck behind all these extruding trims and bevels and whatever. In my experience, you can be pretty generous with playerclip brushes before it starts to feel odd (because essentially, you have players run into invisible walls). Clip brushes also help the bspc compiler (which is used to compile .aas navigation files for bots) because the calculations it needs to do to determine where bots can and can't go are less complex. This reduces compilation time and .aas filesize and in some cases might actually improve bot navigation through the map.
Sometimes, however, you don't want to block off geometry with playerclip because it feels wrong for players, but you still want to simplify layout for bots. Perhaps bots don't work properly in a certain section of the map or the compiler spews out errors about weird geometry. You can then use botclip brushes to fine-tune and optimize the layout for bots, but have no impact on what human players experience.

So to come back to your original question, while Fjoggs' advice is sound, I'd start off covering the geometry in playerclip instead. It's a radiator which, I assume, is just a prop that's somewhere in the level. It doesn't need to be walked on by players, so you can clip it off pretty generously. Depending on what you're looking for, you can place a clip brush that matches the exact dimension of the radiator, or actually extends the clip brush to cover the entire wall the radiator is mounted on, to prevent players from actually stepping on top of it or running into the sides of it while making a quick escape.

[Fruity]

I read a few things from the general Radiant documentation once, but not which I forgot, thanks for writing about it. I didn't know that I could use botclip to playerclip instead (so I wouldn't use both). As for your further statement, the situation on the map is such that there is a large scale between the character and the terrain (see picture below). So the clip for the entire wall rather falls off, but for the entire radiator it can be.