Does it normally take very long time to calculate "full vis"? I use -Level4 and no -fast.. should should I use them both?

Yes, I'm using ericW tools* 

If VIS takes extremely long, it means you have some leaks or weird geometry. 

Faces disappearing still sounds like the r_useportalculling 1 bug. Any DP user feel like reporting that? 

If map is boxed with skyboxes, can there really be leaks at all? I understand if it is not, then it is possible that one corner might not be connected correctly.. using developer 1 in console doesn't give me any errors about leaks.. is there different commands to find those if there is any? 

None of them are working for what I want to decompile...

Igot nothing but an error message claiming it has a problem and that Windows will find a solution.. and that the program has to stop... my ass...

Anyone already tried such tool ? Any idea of what could be the cause ? Note that I tested that with simple maps, and it didn't fail, so it may come from the map I'd like to decompile... :( 

Quake is happiest with rooms and corridors. If you have large open areas vis can take a while. 

I'm bizzy right now with an old map fron the Startrek Quake mod I recompiled it with winqbsp.
I end up with a load of useless poly's, but I can make a decent map of it by extruding the usefull ones.

I use winqbsp a lot for maps, it needs a bit tweaking to work well, but mostly lead to an effective result.

@JPL: - What goes wrong when you use winqbsp?
You can lead the map to convert, extract and script. Using convert brings up a map file, or breaks when the map has to complex geometrie.
I hardly had any case that it didn't work, only when tha author had scrambled the file.

Case is I still work with winXp. 

What Rick said.
...and maybe don't do a box around the map. It will VIS all geometry inside, extremely increasing VIS time. Just place brushes like you'll do with normal sky. Skybox should work just fine. 

Thats horribly wrong, bad practice and lazy too. 

Ahem! Never said I would let it be boxed forever* I was more interested of these weird not drawing faces etc. I started layouting from the scratch, since I think it has something to do with how I made the castle's main hall area. BTW mfx how is your super professional non-lazy map project coming along. 

i dont care about you. 

It was sarcasm, and you don't need to like me. 

Unless it's a coagula map then boxing it up is fine, but yes. Ahh many a day spent plugging up leaks to be saved by the box only to lose many more days waiting for compile time. Good times. 

Y'all need to put some elbow grease into it. Don't build leaky shit and consider having the patience to fix it if you do. Maybe I'm just not architecturally adventurous enough, but I rarely get leaks in what I build because I pay attention as I go. And when I finish working on an area, I seal up the loose ends and find all the little nooks and crannies and plug them up.
Much, much better than waiting 'till the whole map's done. And not that hard to do! 

Thanks Spike for the detailed explanation and the vocabulary correction. 

The thing is simple. I start playtesting right away. I am precise when it comes to finishing up areas, like you all what you would expext, sometimes I seal them right away and sometimes not, because I focus on gameplay and mood. Since I don't know what works and what not if I don't test it first.

If you are familiar with Unity/Unreal level design, you most likely do the same practice and it is the right way to it. So you ask why skyboxes? I don't seem to need them anymore it seems, but back then some older versions of those engines didn't liked to draw void and made testing out barebone layouts frustrating to look at plus it gave a lot of errors.

Now that I am more familiar with mapping, I can plan ahead a lot more, but I am not genious if you think I can create something just purely thinking about it and that works right away with testing. So sorry if I triggered mfx this time, but I will not change the way I test out things, since it is faster and wiser in the end. Only thing is, I need to be even more precise. 

This tool will batch-convert any PNG files in the current working dir to the Quake color palette and create a WAD2 file containing all converted textures.

https://github.com/maikmerten/QuakeTextureTool 

 

For some reasons I lost the source file of one of my map, hence I'd like to recover the map file by decompiling the bsp file.

I tried WinBspC 1.4, and it failed. It is working with some other map, but no with the one I am trying to recover.

So even though I am on Win7, I set executable properties to execute the file as in winXP (one of the possible options in the properties of any executable file), so that is not the problem.

I am just wondering whether the bsp file has to much complex geometry for the tool, and in this case what are the options to recover.
Is there any other available tool with better capabilities, etc.. ? 

Try and older version maybe. :shrug:

https://www.quaddicted.com/files/tools/winbspc12.zip

V1.2 is on Quaddicted.

Open up WinBSPC and go to Help > Help.

Read through the Help section. Namely Section 1. I believe No CSG would help if the issue is complex geometry. 

also, what error are you getting when you decompile?

I just tried to decompile ad_swampy and got an error for the map being in BSP29 mode. 

Got this message also.. tool is expecting a bsp v30, while the map is v29....

Need to retry in anyway. 

is there a way to find leaks in hte map? or do i just have to manually find them? 

When a leak is encountered from a compile, you can go to File > Load Point file and select your map.

Here a line will display and if you follow that line it should lead you to the leak. Of course a leak can happen for other reasons. 

First thing you want to do is to load point file. You can do this in editor or in game. It will show you where the leak come from.