VBCT - Valve Batch Compile Tool

[qUiCkSiLvEr]

Hello everyone!
Thank you for all the great feedback on VBCT.

I wanted to let you know that I've added pre-compile, post-compile and free-form game launch options into VBCT so give them a try.

The pre-compile is very useful for things like cleanup before starting compiles and running a pre-compile check.

Post-compile is useful for running a batch file for bspzip and other tools to embed resources into your BSP.

The options can easily be enabled and disabled (vis the advanced options button) and the options are saved with the default and custom map profiles.

I'm still working on some additional features, thus the "beta" in the current release.

For those of you that have seen the VRAD catch with HDR, this appears to be a bug in the Valve VRAD tool since I've been able to see the same crash using just a simple text batch file. VBCT seems to aggravate it a little but it isn't exclusive to VBCT.

This only seems to happen with both LDR and HDR checked so the solution is to run LDR first then HDR only as a last pass (or vice versa).

NOTE: If you get a VRAD crash, the BSP is likely to have corrupt lighting data in it and you must re-run VRAD to fix it.

I'm still trying to discover an exact sequence that triggers the VRAD crash most of the time so the Valve Developers can look into it.

Cheers!
qUiCkSiLvEr

[Grim Tuesday]

I am very happy!

[Draser]

bump-ity-bump.

i like it

[Kill_the_Bug]

Hmm - just tried using it - have used it great over the last few weeks am now getting the error messages:

vstdib.dll
teir0.dll

Has the MVM update broken the program? Anyone else having issuses with it since the update?

[Aki]

How much of a boost should I expect to see? My full compiles with HDR and VRAD are approaching a minute on a system with 8 Gig and 6 cores. (Yes, I need to optimize)

[fubarFX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aki

How much of a boost should I expect to see? My full compiles with HDR and VRAD are approaching a minute on a system with 8 Gig and 6 cores. (Yes, I need to optimize)

well I don't know about your compile times, but vbct makes setting up complex compile options much faster. and compile profiles are just great

[BaconCat]

Thought I'd ask here rather than make a whole new thread:

What's the advantages of a "Full" VVIS compile vs a "Fast" one. The file sizes seem similar, despite taking 37 seconds for a fast and 7+ mins for a full. What affect does it have client and/or serverwise?

[A Boojum Snark]

A fast vis run only performs one of the two steps for determining visibility, and will result in an excessive amount of unecessary worldspace being rendered (though still far less than having no vis). Fast vis is only for quick testing of non-optimization/visibility changes, and should never be used for a released version.

[Micnax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by A Boojum Snark

A fast vis run only performs one of the two steps for determining visibility, and will result in an excessive amount of unecessary worldspace being rendered (though still far less than having no vis). Fast vis is only for quick testing of non-optimization/visibility changes, and should never be used for a released version.

Eeep, I guess I should stop doing that for every Alpha and Beta version I release then...

[xzzy]

More importantly, a fast build will conceal problems stemming from too many portals being created. Which invariably leads to posts on this forum of people wondering why their map takes two days to compile or "vvis got stuck on 8.."

It's a much easier problem to fix if you catch those problems early (or prevent them entirely) than late in development.