Optimization Is very Useful Because it Increases The Frame rates Within your levels and it
Also Reduces the effectiveness of Wallhacks Type These Two Commands Into the Console and You'll be able to see what is rendered in the level
Here Is an Optimized Level as you Can See things Disappear when they go behind walls
This Means that the Computer Is Cutting out all the stuff it doesn't need to Render and that Increases frame Rates
And this is what happens if You set this to none as you can See the entire Level Is rendered at all Times and
It will slow down People's Computers far more Than an Optimized Level will I
Recommend Knowing Quite A bit About the Hammer Editor before you attempt to optimize your Own Level you must Make your levels Following the Grid
Normally to A 32 Or 64 Unit Scale and your map Must be Clean and Tidy
By This i mean you can't Have Overlapping Textures and Messy bits and it's just much Better if You Keep it Nice and Tidy
Download The Example Map in The Description of this Video to see what i mean
It will Follow the Grid and It'll Look Uncluttered in The grid view
In order for this to be effective you need to set vis [to] fast
Or normal I recommend fast for Playtesting because it Takes
Less Time To Render but on your Final Version of your map set it to normal because this will Increase the frame rates as much
As possible When you're Compiling your map it May get Stuck on the Portal Flow Section?
This is when your Computer Is working out what Is Visible From Which Angle?
Although it Does A good Job with it set to normal
It doesn't do as good a job as you can do if you optimize it Yourself I'm
Going to Show you a couple of Ways of Increasing your frame rates in your levels
Firstly The hint Texture it's Quite Hard to explain what the hint Texture Does?
But Think of it as a wool if you can see it
Then it will Show you everything behind it if you can't See it then it hides Everything behind it here's A Demonstration
Imagine that This Is an above view of a Corridor and [the] green Things [are] Barrels if
This is set to normal it will Make hint nodes Here
Here's The Player When he's Standing here it won't draw These Barrels they will be Invisible
However When he walks Into the Mid bit of the Corridor he'll be able to see the far hint Node and
Therefore The Things Behind it
If he walks Into The first bit again then the Barrels will Disappear again it doesn't Show in This Demonstration because I didn't bother to
Draw it but it does if You place the hint Blocks in Yourself then you can
do A much Better Job of it I like to place diagonal Ones in
This Blue Line doesn't Really Exist
But it Shows The Point Where if the player passes it he'll be able to see the hint Block and It'll stop hiding the things
It was Hiding before?
We Can [Optimize] it Further by Adding Further hint Blocks in Throughout the level this
One will hide the last Three Barrels in This Level, however Once Again Once you Pass the invisible line Where you can
Now See the hint Block again
It'll Show The Barrels again Moving away will hide them again but I haven't got an Animation for that either
Here Is an In-Game Example of me Passing the Invisible Line
Making A hint Block is Really, Easy You search the texture list for skip
You use this Texture to Make a block [Where] [the] hint Is Going to be?
You Can then use the Crimping tool to cut it Into the Shape you want it to be
Once You're happy with it press enter and then Click on the Toggle Texture Application tool
Browse for the hint Texture
Apply it to the face You want the hint Texture to be on and that's in it will now Work
Areaportal is A very Powerful
Optimization Technique Thing if
Placed in A Doorway Or Window it will calculate Exactly what can be Seen on the other Side so as you move Around
What you Can See will Change as?
Well it's A very very Good [way] of Optimizing your Level Although [Apparently] if You overuse it it Can slow down your Computer A
Lot of People Have Difficulty getting this to Work
It will Work as long as the two sides of The Portal Flow Object are Completely separate [in]
Other Words the only Way to get from one Side to the other is either Through a wall or through the Area Portal
For Instance if You have a House with two Doors and Three Windows you've Got to place an Area Portal in each of Those
Openings There Can't Be Any Gaps either it has got to be
Totally Sealed by the Area Portal Block Once Again it's very Easy to Make
You Search for the Area Portal Texture you, Make a block With that texture then you select it and Press
Ctrl T
Choose Func Area Portal There's
Also func Area Portal Window which Means It'll fade out After a Certain Distance
This is good if You have a House in [the] Middle of A field or something and you
Don't want to be able to look
Into The Windows Unless you're Near To it but I'm Just going to stick With aerial Portal for now here's what it's like Without
Area Portal and
Here's what it's like With Area Portal as you can
See, it's much Better and There you go Hopefully [This] has Helped you learn About Optimization have fun and Watch out for Trees