Odd Problem: grate turns black

[Ihmhi]

I have been toolin' around with Hammer creatin' stuff. I wanted to try and create a half-circle grate that looks fairly realistic - that is, it has a metal support all around and two brushes on top and bottom that make up the grate. (This way, if you are on top of the grate, you can see the bottom of it, and vice versa.)

Herein is my problem:

Here is my simple box that I use for creatin' stuff and fooling around. I built the grate, a wall, a latter, and a couple embellishments.

Here is what the grate looks like on the underside. As you can see, the grate is made of two brushes (as I explained above) so you can see the top and bottom of the grate when you are looking through it.

Aim here...

...shoot...

And a big fat chunk of the grate turns black.

This happens with BOTH sides of the grate. The grate part has NOT had its vertices manipulated, but the metal support structure has. Nodraw covers the sides of the grate pieces; the grate texture is only on the top and bottom so it does not look sloppy.

I have tried created the grate portion from scratch and retexturing it, but the problem persists.

Also note that this map has no lighting entities (so everything is fullbright), but I do not think that this is a lighting issue.

I do not believe that it is because the two brushes are placed as they are.

The following link contains this functional map, the .vmf, the .lua, and the five pictures you see above in a .zip file.

http://www.savefile.com/files/1191522

It is also nothing in the .lua as I was screwing around with this exact grate in 1.0 (before you needed a Lua to run a map) and the same problem existed.

The "black" effect disappears and reappears depending on what angle you are looking at it. It is triggered by pertty much any sort of damage, be it nails, hitscan, rockets, pipes, etc.

If you can help (or you just want to look around for the heck of it), go ahead and download the map. Anyone who has ANY idea why the Hell this happens... I would appreciate a solution, as I have asked a lot of mappers who do not have a whole lot of answers. ):

I like this particular brush design and I may want to use it (or something similar) on one of my future maps. I do not want to have to can the design for a reason I do not understand.

Thanks for your help in advance guys.

[df`]

Hoping to see grate_fuckup in the next release.

[barronofhellion]

my f'in source sdk wont even open the f' up ...

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by df`

Hoping to see grate_fuckup in the next release.

The files are linked in the first post (and here too!), you can just download them...

[barronofhellion]

just had a quick look at it , sorry to get back so late, just read the sdk f'up thread and had to put that line in for the pos to load up... have you tried deleteing the top or bottom brush and just using 1 brush ? there is no need for 2

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by barronofhellion

just had a quick look at it , sorry to get back so late, just read the sdk f'up thread and had to put that line in for the pos to load up... have you tried deleteing the top or bottom brush and just using 1 brush ? there is no need for 2

Yes. It happens whether it is one brush or two.

Like I said, the .vmf is included. I have tried pretty much everything I can think of, so I included the .vmf to see if someone else can come up with a solution.

[TheWetMule]

Try making it a func_detail, it cured the same ish type problem for me when my glass kept getting darker, group all it, func_detail.

[Doompiggy]

I think it's a Source problem, as I've seen this on lots of different mods, textures and brushes.

[GambiT]

Originally Posted by barronofhellion

just had a quick look at it , sorry to get back so late, just read the sdk f'up thread and had to put that line in for the pos to load up... have you tried deleteing the top or bottom brush and just using 1 brush ? there is no need for 2

i had a looooooong conversation with him on that, to no avail...lol

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by Ihmhi

Also note that this map has no lighting entities (so everything is fullbright), but I do not think that this is a lighting issue.

trying a few lights would be a much more reliable method than guessing...

I do not believe that it is because the two brushes are placed as they are.

dont you mean the 58 brushes? ok, so the trim needs the 20 that it has, but the other 38 could be made into 2 seperate brushes.
selecting the lot and turning it all into a single func_detail would save a lot of compile time, especially if it gets used in a bigger setting, but my money is on the lack of lighting.

[barronofhellion]

well i got the sdk up and runing , and re-did ( for billionth time ) the setup of hammer with ff

i deleted the bottom one and scaled the top to meet the bottom and dont see anything ... didn't compile however before doing it so dont know if it was just hammer being gay

[GambiT]

barron, just copy your gameconfig.txt file and keep it somewhere, i keep it in mydocuments.

[barronofhellion]

actually thx gambit i was going to start a thread asking if you can back that up because this s* happens like every other few weeks it seams

[GambiT]

yea, and every time you refresh sdk content it wipes it clean, thats why i backed it up.

[Ihmhi]

Thanks to nodnarb who helped me figure this out.

I am still a Hammer newb, so while I thought it was not a lighting issue - ta-daa, I was freakin' wrong! I dropped in a couple of light entities , shot the grate to Hell, and it did not turn black!

So, if you ever encounter a similar problem as this, it looks like it is a lighting issue (specifically with fullbright).

Makes me wonder what kind of fuckups I would find on released maps (dev and community) if I changed mp_fullbright to 1 and went around shooting stuff, hehe...

[fisheye]

[QUOTE=Ihmhi]Thanks to nodnarb who helped me figure this out.

QUOTE]

I missed his post, just like you seem to have missed mine. :P

[Ihmhi]

I talked with nodnarb about it in Steam Friends on Tuesday (the day before you poasted), I was just too busy to make another poast here. That is also why I missed your poast.

But yeah, thanks anyway. You're the only other person besides nodnarb that was able to figure it out. d:

[nodnarb]

<3

[fisheye]

i'd still make sure it was all turned into a func_detail before using it, even though it wasn't the cause of the problem.

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by fisheye

i'd still make sure it was all turned into a func_detail before using it, even though it wasn't the cause of the problem.

Eh well I can screw around with it... but I tested it with lights and saw absolutely no problems whatsoever. Either lights are a workaround or it is just Source being pissy.

I might experiment with it some and see if I can still get the error to crop up with lights around it, but well, you know how temperamental Hammer is.

Thing is, if someone were to activate fullbright using cheats, then they might be able to get the effect to happen. So yeah, I think I am going to delete the light entities from the test map and then make it a func_detail and see what happens.

Thanks for the tipzorz. <3