Linefile nightmare

[themuffinman]

Hi,

I've been working on a map for about 6 weeks now, focusing more on getting the structure together that anything else. So I decided to finally fix up the leak spots it has. I'd compile to the point that it detects if there are leaks or not, then get a linefile and fix the leak. I fixed a whole bunch of leaks. Then once when I did a compile it gave me a 6-point line all floating outside the level, not connecting any entity to the outside and not showing any leak spot what-so-ever. Has q3map2 gone crazy? Or is there some other explanation? Nothing like feeling like you've got a decent map together but you just can't get rid of the leaks :/

[obsidian]

Do you have a spawn location somewhere in your map?

[themuffinman]

Yes I do..

[cityy]

I had that too once but I don't remember how I fixed it.. are there any entities outside your map?

[themuffinman]

No entities outside the map. It's strange, the line doesn't connect to anything :/ and I don't have entities filtered out of view either so that's not the case.

Then again that's just one of the 2 issues I have. The other is my glitchy terrain, but that's another story :/

[Anthem]

Build a box around the map and try to compile it. If it works then you can try to see wtf is up.

[Noruen]

Anthem hitted the point - but try make this box around "potentionaly leaked" area and if it WILL compile, do it smaller and smaller... Differential diagnose

[VolumetricSteve]

I've had really weird line problems too before, one of my maps had the line going straight through a brush that was part of the sky box like the compiler just...didn't care about that one brush, it was also random, it just....decided that it leaked after like...6 working compiles with no brush movement. I fixed it by cussing a lot, and then deleting the whole skybox, and making a new one, ensuring that each part of the skybox is less than 128 units in width (I seem to recall that skyboxes need to be less than a certain width in order to "work") and changing the shape/size of the whole skybox until the compiler feels like working again.

[corsair]

Is the leak line outside the map entirely? both start, end and intermediate points? If not, and it is shooting through a brush like volumetricSteve says it once occurred to him; it is likely a detail brush which is causing it. Making it a structural one again would solve the problem in that case.

If there is something 'out there' - regardless of whether an entity shows up or not - finding its exact coordinates and do a find operation in a wordpad view of the .map file for these coordinates would enable you to delete it. Be sure to search for all three of the 3d coordinates in one search, and translate the way the editor shows them into the way they're written in the .map file.

Perhaps the compiler reads the .map file differently than radiant does and the compiler reads an entity where radiant does not. This would be awkward though, and I think it's unlikely - but so is your error :]

[VolumetricSteve]

I almost mentioned it in my post, the brush I was having issues with was structural actually. *no idea* what q3map2's problem was, I just kept giving it a different shaped skybox until it was happy. *shrug*

[deqer]

hey man. I had the same problem. I fixed it by changing "q3map2.exe" to "q3map.exe"
now using the old q3map.exe from 1999

[themuffinman]

Thanks for the input everyone.
@Anthem: I'll give that a go, but for now I boxed the map up (bad thing to do but it's just for now)
@Corsair: Yes the entire 6 point pointfile is all outside the map. Detail brush - that could be a problem. Which one of the 1,000 of them is the culprit? I searched up coordinates, couldn't find anything. I tried being clever (LOL?) and boxed up the starting point. Then it just moved to another spot when I compiled again! Another strange thing is that QuArK can't read the map - I tried to open it up there to see if I could find buggy brushes that I couldn't see in Radiant.
@deqer: Problem is that q3map isn't anywhere near as refined as q3map2's lighting etc. Although I have used q3map more than q3map2 and it's always been really reliable for me.

Edit: To those who are interested, give the map a try: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=45079 (it's a Quake Live map btw)

[ShadoW_86]

Check you don't have some ent placed 'inside' solid, structural brush by accident. That can give you compile errors.

Also, good for finding what really is making a problem, is checking the map part by part only. Meaning - cut your map (just for testing) first in two parts, then 4 and etc, and then check them separately.

[phantazm11]

If your linefile is completely outside of your map, with the ends seemingly connected to nothing visible, here is something you can try:

Draw a decent sized box around one end of the linefile and hit the "select inside" button. If it selects nothing, try the other end of the line. Sometimes this will select objects that have become invisible for some reason or another.

Also, if you are using models of any kind, make sure that the origin of the model is inside the map. I've seen some models where the origin is far removed from the model itself.

One other thing...I've seen things visible in the compiled version which I cannot see in my map file in Radiant. I have both Radiant 1.4 and 1.5 installed, and I simply open the map in the other editor and the invisible brush usually can be seen and deleted.

[themuffinman]

Alright an update: I've fixed EVERYTHING!

It was the brushes that Radiant wasn't showing that was causing it. After going through the map file in a text editor and removing all these extra brushes etc. I could then remove the box around my map and hey, no more leaks! And the majority of the compile errors dissapeared too. These brushes were caused from when I drag a vertex point and the whole brush suddenly dissapears when I drag it to an angle Radiant doesn't like.

@ShadoW: Yeah the entity in solid situation was the case here, had 2 ammo_bullets inside one of the junk brushes I mentioned above.

@phantazm11: Different versions of Radiant make no difference. I tried QuArK too, and it wouldn't open.

Now I'm working on a beta version for release next weekend possibly.