Talk:Areaportal

Area portal cost

Do open areaportals cost anything when they're out of sight? --Cargo Cult 08:07, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

They have a slight cost, I don't believe it's measurable, but possibly negligible considering map geometry and if they weren't used at all. --wisemx 09:18, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Once there is alot of them it tends to become more costly.--Gear 13:45, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Example map

Here's a test project we did with Jeff Lane on always open Area Portals. 2.3MB ZIP archive. --wisemx 09:18, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

The link seems to be dead, could you please rehost it? --Tourorist 09:04, 28 Aug 2007 (PDT)

Reference to nothing

I just noticed that the there is a link to the page leaks explained. However, that page has a reference to this page. Basically, there is no further information regarding areaportal leaks. Just a comment. --Darthkillyou 09:49, 25 May 2007 (PDT)

Hopefully, enough information has been added since, but if you are still missing information about portal leaks, please let me know straight away, so that I can get on it. --Andreasen 08:55, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Additional information

I found some additional information on area portals here: Optimization_Tutorial, BSP Map Optimization This information should be moved/merged into this page. --Andreasen 10:13, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Is it called "area portals" or "areaportals"?

I asked myself this question when I started working on this article, and I need evidence to support any theory. --Andreasen 10:13, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

I found indisputable evidence that it's called "areaportals" and not "area portals" in the listing of r_areaportal.cpp. This article needs to be moved to areaportal. --Andreasen 11:33, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Yeah it is called areaportals. However there is already a func_areaportal page so keeping it Areaportal would be okay.--Gear 13:47, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

I don't understand. What does the entity page have to do with this page? We can't flood that page with the entire topic. --Andreasen 13:59, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

thats what i was saying, since there is already a entity page. Lol, never mind.--Gear 14:13, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Portals needing to be block shaped

How have you come to the conclusion that portals need to be block (cube) shaped? --Andreasen 14:43, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Ah yes i have tested it out, even with different settings and even on Func_areaportalwindow. The engine seems to act crazy why? Because each side represents a face or in other words a vis leaf. If a areaportal is a triangle then it creates 3 leafs, meaning no working geometry to hide. It can only be two leafes. Room 1 and Room 2 in example. Cant have two rooms in Room 1 get what i mean?--Gear 14:50, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

The reason I'm asking is that I created an octagonally shaped portal (with the MAIN surface shapes being octagonal), and it worked perfectly. I'll experiment further with wedges to see what you mean. --Andreasen 15:14, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Actually, you're both correct in a way. func_areaportal entities can have more than 6 sides, although they can only be one brush. They certainly don't need to be orthogonal (cubes with all 90 degree sides). It is fairly common to have angled areaportals with six sides but "skewed" along the angle to connect two areas. That said, I would not go out of the way to explain the usage of areaportals with more than six brush sides, because it's quite easy to create degenerate leaves this way. Only someone with a deep understanding of the portal and leaf system would likely make one efficiently. I've seen them used this way only a handful of times by any designers in many years, and even then they could have used standard shapes just as effectively. I would not suggest it as a technique to anyone. --JeffLane 15:33, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Still, I'll move this discussion to the areaportal discussion page, so that particularly curious minds can find this explanation if interested. --Andreasen 16:05, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Yup so thats cool, theres alot more advanced ways to do so, but its harder eh? Thats interesting. Are any of those maps in your possession Jeff? Is so i'd like to take a a gander at em', that would be cool.--Gear 15:56, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Portals being 1 unit thick

I've removed lots of these comments because I don't understand why this needs to be mentioned. Portals break visleaves, and should do so at appropriate locations. A normal dynamic door is 2 units thick, and I see no reason for archway portals to be any smaller than the thickness of the archway itself, as that would create additional visleaves. --Andreasen 16:12, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Ah but yet 1 unit is the default, ask jeff, he would know.--Gear 17:10, 16 Sep 2007 (PDT)