Really anal clip brushing...

[Foo]

What's the impact of overlapping clip brushes? Does it have similar consequences to overalapping regular brushes?

I'm having trouble trying to find a way of elegantly clipping a doorway section without adding several clips to different edges which cross over each other in odd places.

I took a look through the dmxsample.map files and the clips overlap everywhere but I dont think they're the ideal technical reference...

Also... it holds true that brushes contained entirely within clip brushes are culled when calculating the AAS file, right? Hence if one was to be completely anal about performance it would be correct to cover many small brushes with big 'blanket' clip volumes?

[Hex]

overlap away, not matter. Right - for the bot aas, the simpler the geometry the better, meaning put botclip everywhere (where there's not already playerclip) to make everything 90 degree box simplicity.

[Foo]

Well I was tinkering around and decided to try and make a 'technically perfect' gothic doorway. An impossible goal for sure, but any comments?

http://www.zen84106.zen.co.uk/quake3/doorway.map

EDIT: I'm missing a hint brush, which should fill the rectangular area of the doorway between the structural walls.

The walls are split into 3 pieces to get around the problems with mipmapped edges on textures. Not sure if they're seamless, am gonna go check.

[Hex]

hm? for the purposes of botclipping, this is better from the way I understand it.
mhgaming.com/forums/doorway2.map

Or am I missing your point?

couple assumptions: you can change the clip texture to just botclip. I opened it in the q4editor (no botclip), so hopefully you can open it up again with whatever you're using...

I don't see any reason to clip the way you did, it was well done, but why?

Besides that, the construction of the doorway itself looks ace.

[Foo]

I dont get anything there sir, blank map in GTKRad...

The rest of the clipping is for more than just botclip. It's to smooth out the small edge along the wall so the player doesn't get caught, and stop the player hitting his head on the top of the door walls.

The stuff up the top was to prevent a player standing on top of the archway, and also to remove the patch surfaces from the botfile (I think individual patch clip surfaces encased in clip get culled as well, but I'm not sure.

[Hex]

I dont get anything there sir, blank map in GTKRad...

Bummer. Well the botclip example was three clip boxes. one left, one right and one on top. Leaving a hole where the doorway was and covering all the brushwork.

your original clipping isn't making the aas any easier to calculate. its nearly as complex as the brushwork. The reason for botclilp is to make everything linear and square for the aas.

-goes wandering off to see if the q3radiant install still runs...

[Hex]

OK, try that dl again, fixed now.
mhgaming.com/forums/doorway2.map

I put it in the gtkradiant and put the botclip brushes per discussion.

You can sure leave the clip the way you did it for purposes of clipping the players movement. But I think even making those more axial and blocky makes the compile faster, and the bsp smaller.

somewhere is "Q's sample map thread" you should see - anybody got a live link?

edit: here it is, have a look at his clipping screenshots:
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives ... 20488.html?

[Foo]

Hehe that thread is a big discussion in itself.

I've looked at your example and it makes sense to me. Do botclips physically block bots or just for the purposes of creating the navigation file? if you knock a bot into an area covered by a botclip, does it freak out?

EDIT: wait never mind. I can and should find this out myself by playin with the test map.

[Foo]

Wow. Botclip physically contains bots but not players. I didn't realise it was that powerful.

[Hex]

Right, it physically blocks the bots. just like playerclip blocks the players. If you bounce them with some rocketspash, they just stop when they run into the botclip.

BTW, playerclip also blocks bots, so you only need to botclip where you haven't already simplified geometry with the playerclip brushes...

[Foo]

Hoho, I'm going to have some fun with this.

Giving the bots some superhuman movement possibilities might make a level interesting. Gimmicky, but then for serious play you're not using bots, so no big deal right

[obsidian]

There is also a donotenter shader that you can use as a very strong suggestion for the bots to not enter, but they can actually go through if forced, as in if someone shoots them with a rocket or something.

[spookmineer]

Yea I read a while ago they use it to avoid bots from just walking into a void or lava (if for some reason they do that, maybe because of an item accross the void/lava). It acts like botroam with negative value.

[spookmineer]

http://www.planetquake.com/cardigan/tips_botopt.html

Very good tutorial (was invaluable for my map).

[seremtan]

What's the impact of overlapping clip brushes? Does it have similar consequences to overalapping regular brushes?

for BSP, no
for AAS & collision, yes - but only if they overlap at crazy angles with bits sticking out

[reptile]

When you're gonna need it.
Isn't there anything to read about this in the tutorials yet?