Portal Problems (with Screen Shots)

#1 Can ya show me the portal's placements? (they are functional in 1.0.2)

#2 Here are some screens ... first is the pipe's portal position (say that 3 times fast!).

The others are the portals doing the same thing in the office, when looking through 2 portals (same as 2 ends of pipe), and the positioning of one example in doorway. All portals are positioned in the exact relative position in the doorways of the office.

Thanks for any immediate help/advise! We are on a deadline, so if it's something I'm doing wrong it would be very helpful to know. Thanks!

#3 Let me just add really quickly that this artifact seems to only happen when looking through 2 portals (so far, that I've noticed).

Also, it should be known that apparently constructor isn't creating zones properly (for me? or in general?), making my baked DTS objects be drawn all of the time instead of occluding them when you can't see them through walls, and making the engine chug on some computers.

Thanks again!

#4 I dunno if I can be of any help, but I'll try based on my own limited experiences to this point with contructor.


(I am still testing some of these, so take them with a grain of salt)

= Portals should only be one or two units thick.. the thicker they are, the more troubles I seemed to have.
= Portals should not share the same plain as another brush face. It appears some of yours do above.
= Portals, as I said above, need to be buried in other brushes.
= Here is one I'm still testing so I'm not 100% on it.. I had similar issues as you show above when I had two portals in line of sight of each other, AND in the same plain. An example would be.. making a portal, copying it and moving it directly down a hall or tunnel so one is at both ends, but in the exact same level and placement(in one of the views it would appear as only one portal). When I did this, areas disappeared, had the hall of mirrors effect etc.
= Another thing, if the interior isnt sealed (small opening some where), it may cause issues as well.


Like I said, I do not know if this is helpful, but following these has been 100% effective so far for me. Again.. I'm still testing some of these.

#5 Thanks, I will double-check my geometry. I don't believe that anything is sharing the same plane ... I believe that means that one of the portal faces are exactly in the same location as a brush face, right? All of the doorways, for example, have the brush sticking through the doorframe on all 4 sides, and are skinnier than the size of the openning. However, I do have a couple of spots that are exactly what you said about a portal that was duplicated and both lie at either end of a hallway. The screen shots, and other locations in my office, do have me looking at an angle through two portals, so the two that I'm looking through are definitely not the same in 1 viewport view. The pipe tunnel does have that problem though.

Thanks, I will check it out.

#6 What is the size of your portals.. I was making mine 0.1 thick and I have noticed not 100% on this but it seams to me that if ther are more than 4 brushes touching your portal will give you that artifact look.. I didn't see this post until after I posted Here

EDIT:

And if you have a Detail Brush touching a Portal I think that may cause it to have the artifact look to it still not 100% on this one too.

#7 Thanks for that info .. I will have to look into that one as well. I do know that some of the building portals are going through more than 4 brushes... and the pipe definitely was going through more than 4 since it is a circular hole. Thanks, and if I find something, I will let you know.

#8 Adam is correct on detail brushes

#9 All Right it might not have been the 4 brushes it might have been that my wall that was down into the floor and then when I cut out the door way and left the bottom part of the wall inside the floor.
So it might just be the fact that the portal is touching overlapping brushes.. but this didn't happen to every one and I still got the artifact look on portals that are not used were there are overlapping brushes but it seams that getting read of that small brush under the door way will fix some of the issues.

#10 I'm still convinced that portals DO NOT WORK. I'm getting EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED, both by these not working and, if I am doing something wrong, by the lack or tutorals/explainations for how to set up things for Torque. I have just exported 3 tests of an EXTREMELY BASIC BUILDING, and still the portals don't work. I still see lighting from the TGE 1.5.2 (using constructor 1.0.2) sun coming in thru my doorway. The first test was of a basic room with a basic portal. I asigned my "null" texture to the portal and that didn't work. So the second test was using the "NULL" texture that was built-in (is there a difference in capitalization?), and that was the same. The third test was to import a few DTS shapes and see if they are at the very least being occluded (I checked this by going into the wall with the camera to see if the objects are there), and once again, a failure. Does anything work? If so, is anyone out there going to be able to help the rest of us so that we are not re-inventing the wheel? I realize that people are busy, as am I, but you'd think that if someone has portals working correctly, they would post how they got it working. As it is, my nice indoor environment with numerous DTS objects baked in with great shadows has been yanked from the game engine because the portals don't work ... in which we now have to use an old version, and create portals in Quark... then go back to the old way of doing things and get crappy lighting. Oh, and one more thing... what happened to the collision objects of DTS shapes in Constructor 1.0.2 exports? Yet another thing that doesn't work.

#11

Quote:
I still see lighting from the TGE 1.5.2 (using constructor 1.0.2) sun coming in thru my doorway.

As mentioned in a couplle other threads, this is a bug with Constructor 1.0.2 which will be fixed by Constructor 1.0.3 (in QA now).

The portals are doing the job of visibility occlusion (their primary purpose) but are currently letting the ambient light through (with 1.0.2).

#12 Matt. Thank you for the information. But, unless I'm doing something wrong, they are not occluding anything within the 'room' that they are supposed to. The game still slows way down when looking toward the original building with a lot of DTS shapes in the rooms, which leads me to believe that the objects are still being rendered. This was varified with a small little box room that I made too... when I am in the world editor and move the free cam into the middle of the wall, you can still see the DTS baked objects inside. Note that when you export from Quark and place objects within the world editor and look into the building through the walls like that, the objects are not visible. Any thoughts?

#13 Okay ... here are some screenshots. I guess that I was wrong in the fact that portals ARE occluding objects. But I am apparently correct that they are only occluding objects and are not baked in constructor.

I have to say that I absolutely LOVE constructor for the fact that you can bake in DTS objects ... but if they are still going to be rendered at all times, then this feature becomes relatively pointless in all but the most basic game levels. Is this going to be fixed soon? Adding screen shots to show exactly what I'm talking about: Mailbox was added in the world editor, whereas the rest of the DTS objects were baked into the DIF building.

Thanks in advance!

#14 I made somes tests and I have the same problems as Woody.
By using the console command glenableoutline(true), I've noticed that when you're inside, the portals work, meaning that when inside only the part seen through the portal are rendered.
On the other hand, when outside, everything inside is rendered...

I also had the collision problem with baked dts.

Will the 1.03 fix those problems ? If not I will have to find a work around as we have to finish our game soon.

Thanks

#15 Are you guys testing your portaled areas to make sure they are functioning? Load a portaled level in debug and with the main menu system closed (f11), push F9. If your portals are functioning, you should get a screen that looks somthing like this (test interior made for simple portal tests):






I have not baked a dts through contructor yet so I cannot help there. If what I posted above is not relevent I apologize.

#16 I didn't know that one, I'll try right away.
But I think my portal works, as it works one way (when you' re inside, the landscape is occluded).

#17 This will probably sound stupid, but how do I enter debug mode? i tired searching, but can't find that. if it's on the programming end, i'm the artist (basic knowledge of programming). Thanks.

#18 It has to be on the programming side. They must give you an executable which is in debug mode (they must compile a new executable).

#19 I've check in debug mode. The portals work fine with DIF structure and Kork, but it doesn't work with the baked DTS.
When the portal is not in sight, the DIF disappears, if Kork is also inside this room, he's not displayed, but the baked DTS is still in view.
Will this bug be fixed in 1.03, or am I doing something wrong ?

#20 I have no idea if it is addressed in 1.0.3 .... Matt, you still there? I think this is a HUGE issue that probably needs immediate attention, right?