Mirrored Planes

[IrocJeff]

I've made up  a bunch of real world signs with Star Wars language font instead of english on them. Stuff like Caution, Danger! Electrical Hazard, and so on.

I am making some brushes .25 units wide and using these sign textures on them. I read about that on an old Quake 3 forum. This way, I don't have to make decals out of them.

 

At any rate, these .25 unit thick textures are causing mirrored plane errors when I compile. When they signs are 1 unit thick I'm fine, but anything under that I'm skunked. 

 

Any ideas why this happens?

 

[MoonDog]

Why don't you just use a patch mesh?

[IrocJeff]

Not sure to be honest...never really thought of that..

[Apprentice]

I would definitely use patch meshes for this and keep them .25 from the main brush . . .

[mrwonko]

Any ideas why this happens?

Due to rounding errors the front and back of the brush end up being the same, so the brush is infinitely thin, which is illegal.

 

Just make it thicker, there's no reason for it to be that thin. Remember that brushes can intersect one another without a problem. Just make all the sides/back system/nodraw. And make sure it's a detail brush, obviously.

[MoonDog]

I would definitely use patch meshes for this and keep them .25 from the main brush . . .

 

 

Why even do that? If the if is a flat billboard texture with no need for transparency, just make two patchmeshes. If it does require transparency, or being flush with another plane simply give it polygonoffset in the shader keywords.

[Apprentice]

Why even do that? If the if is a flat billboard texture with no need for transparency, just make two patchmeshes. If it does require transparency, or being flush with another plane simply give it polygonoffset in the shader keywords.

I'm going to explain this with a screenshot:

 

 

The LCARS texture on the far left of the image is a patchmesh which is situated 0.25 units in front of the brush behind. Polygonoffset doesn't work on all occasions.

[MoonDog]

I've never made a decal texture and have it NOT work with polygonoffset. The only issue I've seen is with the occasional lightmap problem or shadow z-fighting.

[IrocJeff]

Due to rounding errors the front and back of the brush end up being the same, so the brush is infinitely thin, which is illegal.

 

Just make it thicker, there's no reason for it to be that thin. Remember that brushes can intersect one another without a problem. Just make all the sides/back system/nodraw. And make sure it's a detail brush, obviously.

 

Why is there no reason for something to be that thin? When you hang a poster or put a decal on something thats pretty thin. If I put a sign on an electrical panel that says Danger! Electrical Hazard I don't want it to stick out 1 unit because you can tell its sticking out one unit. Looks dumb.

 

At any rate, I just cut up part of the box I made to the size of the decal I want and stuck the texture on it and I'm fine now.. 

[mrwonko]

Why is there no reason for something to be that thin?

Because anything thinner than 1 unit might as well have no thickness at all, i.e. be just a plane.