vis

vis - Compute visibility (PVS) for a Quake BSP file

Synopsis

vis [OPTION]… BSPFILE

Description

vis is a tool used in the creation of maps for the game Quake. vis looks for a .prt file by stripping the file extension from BSPFILE (if any) and appending “.prt”. vis then calculates the potentially visible set (PVS) information before updating the .bsp file, overwriting any existing PVS data.

This vis tool supports the PRT2 format for Quake maps with detail brushes. See the qbsp documentation for details.

Compiling a map (without the -fast parameter) can take a long time, even days or weeks in extreme cases. Vis will attempt to write a state file every five minutes so that progress will not be lost in case the computer needs to be rebooted or an unexpected power outage occurs.

Options

Logging

-log

Write log files. Enabled by default.

-nolog

Don’t write log files.

-verbose
-v

Verbose output.

-nopercent

Don’t output percentage messages.

-nostat

Don’t output statistic messages.

-noprogress

Don’t output progress messages.

-nocolor

Don’t output color codes (for TB, etc).

-quiet
-noverbose

Suppress non-important messages (equivalent to -nopercent -nostat -noprogress)

Performance

-lowpriority [0]

Run in a lower priority, to free up headroom for other processes.

-threads n

Set number of threads explicitly. By default vis will attempt to detect the number of CPUs/cores available.

-fast

Skip detailed calculations and calculate a very loose set of PVS data. Sometimes useful for a quick test while developing a map.

Game

-gamedir "relative/path" or "C:/absolute/path"

Override the default mod base directory. if this is not set, or if it is relative, it will be derived from the input file or the basedir if specified.

-basedir "relative/path" or "C:/absolute/path"

Override the default game base directory. if this is not set, or if it is relative, it will be derived from the input file or the gamedir if specified.

-filepriority archive | loose

Which types of archives (folders/loose files or packed archives) are higher priority and chosen first for path searching.

-path "/path/to/folder" <multiple allowed>

Additional paths or archives to add to the search path, mostly for loose files.

-q2rtx

Adjust settings to best support Q2RTX.

-defaultpaths

Whether the compiler should attempt to automatically derive game/base paths for games that support it. Enabled by default.

-nodefaultpaths

Opt out of -defaultpaths.

Output

-noambientsky

Disable ambient sound generation for textures with names beginning with ‘SKY’.

-noambientwater

Disable ambient sound generation for textures with names beginning with *WATER or *04WATER.

-noambientslime

Disable ambient sound generation for textures with names beginning with *SLIME.

-noambientlava

Disable ambient sound generation for textures with names beginning with *LAVA.

-noambient

Disable all ambient sound generation.

See also

_noambient for selectively disabling ambient sounds.

-noautoclean

Don’t remove extra files on successful completion. Default is to remove them.

Advanced

-level n

Select a test level from 0 to 4 for detailed visibility calculations. Lower levels are not necessarily faster in in all cases. It is not recommended that you change the default level unless you are experiencing problems. Default 4.

-visdist n

Allow culling of areas further than n units.

-nostate

Ignore saved state files, for forced re-runs.

-phsonly

Re-calculate the PHS of a Quake II BSP without touching the PVS.

Model Entity Keys

"_noambient" "1"

Disables ambient sound emission from these specific brushes.

Author

Kevin Shanahan (aka Tyrann) - http://disenchant.net
Eric Wasylishen
Based on source provided by id Software

Reporting Bugs

Please post bug reports at https://github.com/ericwa/tyrutils-ericw/issues.
Improvements to the documentation are welcome and encouraged.