Detail Brushes

Optimizing a map can be very critical to fps, gameplay and compile times. This tutorial on "Detail Brushes" will cover all three.

Note: I am using GtkRadiant 1.6.3 (which also has the same shortcuts as 1.4). Also I edited my caulk texture, what you see as black/white should be pink.

Having a small map like this may not affect fps or your compile time; but the more details you add the more chaotic it can become.

As of now all the brushes are structural (by default). To start making brushes detail you want to add caulk to any unseen surfaces.

Note: Normally these surfaces would not be drawn in game, but when you make a brush detail it does show up in game, so it is critical to caulk these surfaces.

In the image above, we have the original brushes on the right, and the left sepeareted between each individual brush.

In this upclose image you can see each individual face that you wouldn't see in game, so now we are going to change those individual faces. There's quite a few shortcuts to do this but the easiest way would be to select the caulk texture in the texture window then hold shift and press the mousewheel down (Shift+mouse3), over the texture in the 3d window.

Now we can collapse this down back to its original state and make it a detail brush, but since this is something that will most likely get spread through out the map, we're going to group these brushes together. Select all brushes, right click on 2d grid and go to func_ then click on func_group. When you deselect the brushes you will see it outlined in blue instead of black.

The purpose for using function groups is to select a large amount of brushes with one click. Now with it deselected, hold ctrl+alt and left mouse button click either on the 2d grid or the 3d window on any brush of group, it will then select the group of brushes entirely. To make it detailed simply press ctrl+m. To filter detail brushes on and off press ctrl+d.

Replace existing brushes with the new grouped detailed brush.

The main purpose of detail brushes is to cut down your compile time and reduce vis, which you can see for yourself comparing these two images together.

All brushes structural.

All brushes detail except walls, floor and ceiling.

Note: After compiling your map you can view your own map like this by avtivating the menu Plugins -> prtview -> Load .prt file. You need to compile the map with the -vis parameter.

Any brush that touches the void (grey area outside the map), should NOT be made detail, it will cause a leak.

If you dont caulk any unseen surfaces and detail everything it will affect the fps on your map.

Written by Ghost