Stairs killed my map

[Viperidae]

Ok, I've been mapping for quite a while, and have never encountered this:

For some super strange reason, whenever I place a set of stairs facing one direction, my map crashes. I can put the exact same set of brushes facing the other way, and it runs fine. I thought it might be some kind of vis problem, so I turned the stairs into a func_brush, but to no avail. Here's how simple they are:

Without stairs, runs fine.

With stairs, HL2DM freezes.

Now, before we have the 'But Viper, it's teh CLUSTER PORTALS!1!' posts, yes I realise that error is there, but if you'll notice it's the error is in both compiles, one working and the other not. I would like to know what that means, but it's not my priority.

If anybody knows why this innocent little set of stairs kills my map, please help.

 

[Viperidae]

Sorry to bump, but plz does anyone have any ideas?

 

[eddie500]

try a func_detail thats wat i use for stairs...

 

[Crispy]

Very strange. I'll say that for it.

Are there any weird properties for the stair texture? (even though you seem to have it on the upper floor but-).

Try doing weird things, that can sometimes sort it out (making the step brushes triangle-based prisms, giving certain faces null textures!!??).

If it's still a problem then I'd consult Valve or the VERC, it could be a very secifically dodgy bug...

[Edit:]Are you always adding the stairs as a grouped or individual entities? The "cluster portals saw into cluster" error looks like a kind of leak. Try checking your map for leaks to get rid of the cluster error.

 

[Calm_Blue_Ocean]

I assume the view you are showing us is looking down on the stairs. You should have a brush with the no draw texture that stretches all the way across the bottom (between the skybox and the your map's lowest brush). If you don't know what I mean, load up one of the sample maps in the sdk content folder. Also, be sure that you don't have any entities (including func walls, etc.) touching the skybox or you will have a leak. When your map does compile, is it full bright? (this would indicate a leak or skybox problem).

 

[bdpq]

Question: In your screenshot...Why do you have a sky under your floor? You would probably save some compile time and file size if you changed it to nodraw.

 

[Calm_Blue_Ocean]

Question: In your screenshot...Why do you have a sky under your floor? You would probably save some compile time and file size if you changed it to nodraw.

Ummm....isn't that exactly what I said?

 

[Viperidae]

Well atm I am just lazily putting a box around my map, as I've not completely finished the extents of it.