Don't make your portal on a diagonal and try to keep them all the same size. Follow the damn HEK tutorial!

Oh, by the way, your problem has to do with using a version of max that isn't 8. Your exporter messed up, and sucks. Port the map to max 8 and then export it there.

I'm using 2012, but I got some garbled heap of junk like this even with max 8 and blitzkrieg. My portals aren't on a diagonal; that's just what tool thinks they look like. I'll try and keep them the same size (as in the picture you sent me, Slappy) and 'box out' the map a bit more to facilitate an easier portalling run. We'll see how that works. I have a final to study for tomorrow, so I won't be at it for a few days.

Alright, and if your own portals don't work I guess I can send mine as a reference. Try it yourself first though.
Also, I use 2012 and export with portals fine. Just make sure you're using the newest exporter there is.

In case you didnt know:

+portal is what you name the box portals you use to divide the main map up.

+exactportal is what you name the portals that lead into tunnels. (Thats why it sounds different when you walk ungerground or under a piece of shelter). This helps reduce lag because only that section of the map
is loaded for that on player, not the entire map. So its like(Emphasis on like) having multiple BSPs in one play area in other words.

I am using the latest exporter, unless there is something beyond 1.0.4d? What exporter do you use?

1.0.4d
So yeah you're okay.

is that bluestreak? cause i just use bluestreak. oh and one easy way to make your portals equal is to make one portal and move it the the far edge then use the array tool to equally make copies then do the same for the other side.

Tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SqygQGcPgU&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL97A6E1AEB6A1D637

I got better portals in...I don't like them because they cut too much off. But I noticed something: as I flew through the scenario in Sapien, I noticed intermittent flashing. I've noticed this before; it looks like my BSP is in the scenario, just not rendering correctly. But tonight I noticed something I haven't before: this flashing had the EXACT outline of portions of my map! It's difficult to explain, but it's as if I were looking at cross-sections of my map and nothing more. I still do not understand why this is happening, however, but it does seem to indicate that my map is indeed in there somewhere...

Perhaps lightmaps are an issue here? I've tried running radiosity in Sapien, but I get errors (bad UVWs or triangles, but I can't get the stinking WRL into max). I ran it through tool, but I either didn't input the right values for the function parameters, or it just isn't working. I entered in:

tool lightmaps levels\requiem\requiem 0 0 0.9

I also tried different values but the process still 'completed' in the same amount of time, which shouldn't happen, as I adjusted the quality. Thoughts?

it is 0 0.9

What about the BSP index parameter?

not too sure, i don't know cause i have never had all of these problems. apart from a failing video card, i have no idea why you would have the flashes going on in there, unless they are portal related.
also you say you can't get the WRL file into max, why? is it not just taking a while to load all the bad UVWs and triangles that you mentioned, after all this is a very big map, with a lot of poly's that could be holding bad UVWs.

can you take a video of this to show the others that might know?
http://camstudio.org/

i don't know why but lightmaps in tool never work. they do exactly as gonzo said say complete and nothing happens. but gonzo if that's been happening then that's why you can't see your map. the lightmaps have not been done. you have to fix those bad uvws and then try radiosity again. easy way to find the bad uvws is by looking for stretched textures or trying to remember which faces you haven't unwrapped. then you fix it by re texturing it.

That would explain it. I still have a few faces with awful UVWs from when it was in gmax and I deleted and rebuilt the faces. I never corrected all the UVWs on those rebuilt faces. But at the same time, I question whether that's really the cause; there are bad UVWs on some, if not all, of Bungie's maps.

Also, http://youtu.be/moBFq5ArZME. Video of what's going on. Not the best, as it is my first. Questions?
Edited by CAG Gonzo on Dec 17, 2011 at 03:03 PM

yep dude that's lighting. there's no light on the map. fix the textures and try radiosity again.

yip had that problem before, lightmaps is not running properly due to the bad uvws.

edit: the answer is above while i was typing lol
Edited by ally on Dec 17, 2011 at 03:16 PM

Darkassasin, lightmaps do work in tool.
What problems where you having?

tbh it always runs in tool for me, since knowing it can be run in tool i never run it sapien now.
tool lightmaps levels\mymap\mymap mymap 0 0.9?

well when i do them in tool it says complete 2 seconds after i hit enter but it didn't do any lightmaps. i would like to do them in tool but i could never get it to work for me.

i have had that happen before, i will try remember what i did to fix it.

tool lightmaps levels\myfolder\myscenario mybsp 0 0.9 -or-
tool lightmaps levels\myfolder\myscenario mybsp 1 0.9

But, you also need a lightsource in your sky that is referenced by your scenario. Just throw on bloodgulch sky, save, then run lightmaps again, then view in sapien. If bsp/ground is still not visible, open your bsp in guerilla scroll to materials, if all of the color boxes are black, that's your problem, set them, then re-run lightmaps. If it is still a problem, have someone else run lightmaps on their machine (some 6 and 8 core processors don't like radiosity).

I have an i5-2400. I changed some of the material colors to match the values from b30a's BSP tag. There was no change. I'll go change the others, but I'm still not expecting anything. I'll also try remapping the faces, but again, I don't think that's the issue.

that's exactly the issue. no need to change the texture just remap them.

and i just noticed. i was entering tool lightmaps levels\test\mymap\mymap 0 .5 .0001
but you guys are saying tool lightmaps levels\test\mymap\mymap mybsp .5 .0001

i thought the bsp index was just a number not the name of the bsp.

Apparently I am incapable of running radiosity...I detached the actual BSP and kept a test BSP I made (which is literally nothing more than a box) and tried running radiosity in Sapien. It froze my machine on both quality settings. Oh, that simple, SIMPLE BSP also doesn't show. It has that same flashing issue with my actual map...I may not be able to actually do this on my machine that I forked over nearly a grand for...spectacular.

Well, I think I'm going to stop trying to get portals and Sapien to like me and just finish the map. I need to remap faces and I've considered redesigning the secondary wall. This will give me something to contribute to the furthering of this project until the individuals who have offered to help come up with results. Hopefully they will be more successful than I.

well if you do radiosity in sapien then it usually freezes for a while and then you'll see numbers. the freeze time depends on how big the map is. and this is a big map so your freeze time will be huge. i know because this map im making takes 2 days to finish lighting. so now that i learned how to do lightmaps in tool (thanks to maniac1000) i can continue working on other things while lighting is done. that's another thing with sapien's radisoity, you have to have sapien open and it has to be the active window for it to work. you can minimize tool and do whatever you want.
to do it in tool the values have to be this: for the bsp index: "name of the structure_bsp tag" for the quality: anything between "0 and 1" so something like .5 would work. and for stop threshold: for a short lightmap ".09 and for a long and good quality lightmap .000001. so for a good lighting the command will be: tool lightmaps levels\mymap\mymap mymap 1 .000001
Edited by darkassassin14 on Dec 18, 2011 at 06:27 PM

Even with a simple box? I would think lightmap generation would be much simpler with basically one flat surface to consider. I'm testing it in tool now.

Test results: ran out of freaking memory. Another error/obstacle? What else is new?
Edited by CAG Gonzo on Dec 18, 2011 at 06:54 PM

lol and that's when you get more RAM. yea on my map i can't do the highest quality lightmap because i run out of memory. so i have to go with the low quality one. try using: 0 .009

How much RAM do you have?

i have 4GB. soon ima get 8GB. so did you try it?

I have 8GB. I tried it with 0 0.009...same thing.

If you load the level in sapien and terrain doesn't show up but items do and the bsp collision appears to be there, you gotta run lightmaps.
Run tool lightmaps for moarer fastness

tool lightmaps levels\requiem\requiem requiem 0 0.9
^levels\requiem\requiem = scenario file tags\levels\requiem\requiem.scenario
^requiem = requiem.scenario_structure_bsp
^0 = low quality/fast
^0.9 only count down to 0.9/fast
If you get a degenerate triangle error, import debug.wrl into your max scene and fixulate the UVWs.
Open level in sapien again.
If the level is there but is all white (with shadows) then the shaders for the bsp have no bitmaps. Or maybe you didn't name your material slots in max to the names of the shader_environments. Check which shaders are referenced by opening the scenario_structure_bsp in guerilla (this will take a while).
Edited by SlappyThePirate on Dec 18, 2011 at 09:58 PM

yea what he said. you explained it better than me. and again yes you have to remap those surfaces, just trust me, that is the problem.

Here are some more links

http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=6120
M1911 Pistol Tags

http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=6134
Rlancer Weapon Tags

http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=6189
Plasma Cannon Tags

http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=6182
Civilian Biped Tags


Edited by Killer22 on Dec 27, 2011 at 08:41 PM

sooo... i see this thread has not been replied to for a while and am wondering if this is going well. is it going well?

No updates to report. I still can't get it to appear, and just for haha's, I selecting every face and remapped it to a generic box mapping, so that any faces that have bad mapping would be corrected. The level still didn't appear. I ran radiosity through tool and it ran out of memory, even using several values for the quality and cutoff. I literally have no idea what to do now. I've been working on my next project instead (it's a much smaller map).