Open Edges, Regarding Levels

[Ingulit]

I'm currently trying to compile my prison level I was discussing earlier. My level is comprised of a single, closed mesh, with many other objects strewn throughout it such as the prison bars. To save polies, I deleted a number of faces such as the tops and bottoms of the prison bars (faces that were penetrating the walls, ones that the player would never see or collide with). I thought this would be okay, considering the main part of my level was a closed mesh. However, tool says no. I was almost certain I could do this... Is there a way?

[teh lag]

I'm currently trying to compile my prison level I was discussing earlier. My level is comprised of a single, closed mesh, with many other objects strewn throughout it such as the prison bars. To save polies, I deleted a number of faces such as the tops and bottoms of the prison bars (faces that were penetrating the walls, ones that the player would never see or collide with). I thought this would be okay, considering the main part of my level was a closed mesh. However, tool says no. I was almost certain I could do this... Is there a way?

Not really. You can make the bars render-only, but then they won't collide at all. Best course of action : go ahead and reseal the bars, those polies won't break your map, especially if it's portalled well.

[Tweek]

here's what you CAN do.

position the top and bottom of your cylinders(bars) very close to the surfaces they would intersect with, but don't have them quite touch.

then apply +sky to the top and bottom cap.
the +sky will save polys, since they're not rendered, so no performance impact there. you also don't have to spend polys welding the bars into the surrounding geometry.

[Ingulit]

Z Buffered Triangle Error.

I can't have objects intersecting? Jesus, I used to be so meticulous about making sure I didn't have any face going through any others, but I'd heard it was okay to have intersecting objects to save on polies. Crap.

I'm just gonna create a bunch of player clipping and make all my rendered stuff render-only... That oughta do it. :|

[LlamaMaster]

Z Buffered Triangle Error.

I can't have objects intersecting? Jesus, I used to be so meticulous about making sure I didn't have any face going through any others, but I'd heard it was okay to have intersecting objects to save on polies. Crap.

I'm just gonna create a bunch of player clipping and make all my rendered stuff render-only... That oughta do it. :|
Or you could just do what tweek said...

[Ingulit]

Okay, I now no longer have ANY inter penetrating objects, and I'm using Tweek's trick for my holes. However, there's a catch: using Tweek's trick has given me a "a surface clipped to no leaves" error everywhere that I have a sky material. How do I fix this? I don't understand what the problem is, and from what I've found searching I'm not doing anything that should cause this. Are you sure this trick works?

EDIT: The sealed part of my level has NO +sky materials applied to it; could this be the problem?


POST 2:
Normally I wouldn't double post or bump, but I've not been more stuck than I am right now.

Well, I just went and tried to run lightmaps and view my level in Sapien (considering the level still compiled, despite the surface clipping errors) and my game window was pitch-black post-lightmaps. I can think of two causes for this: one, the surface clipping errors, or two, the fact that the only lighting that is reaching the level is that of an environment shader with 15 power light being emmited from lamps around the top of the level. I'm not sure if I set up the lights correctly, but from what I can tell I did. Therefore, I'm going to assume it was the clipping errors, which I need some major help with.

I also tried replacing the +sky materials with my default material, but to no avail; I got the exact same output as before. I consider myself to be somewhat experienced with the HEK, but I've hit a dead end. Does anybody have any idea what I should do?

EDIT: If anyone wanted to be uber, I'd love some help over XFire or something of the sort. XFire: Ingulit


POST 3:
Surely somebody knows what's going on... Please, if any of you have even the slightest clue, I'd appreciate anything right now; my getting this beta of my map in-game is pivotal to my simply getting started on my mod, as everything else revolves around my getting this thing in-game. I want to get started :'(

[Tweek]

if you got a clipped to no leaves, pull the caps a little bit further away from the top and bottom, make a bit bigger gap. makes it easyer for tool to see that there is, in fact, a gap.

if that doesnt work, just make them render only, and add some playerclip. this means youll be able to shoot trough them though, i'm not sure if there's a bullet-clip material, but you can use that around the cylinders to fix that (if there is such aterial)

[Ingulit]

Moving the faces away from the other faces by another power of ten worked! in Wings, I had originally moved the +sky faces away a mere 0.01 units, and it gave me errors. Moving them another 0.09 units solved everything! Tyvm :)