Welcome to another one of my tutorials. This tutorial will teach you about leaks and how to fix them.

Leaks are very common errors when it comes to mapping. Just about every mapper has encountered a leak or 2 during the creation of their maps.

What is a leak?

A leak can  be caused by many things, but the most common problem that causes it is when a mapper forgets to completely seal the map from the Void(black area).

The following image shows an example of a leak

As you can see, there is a small gap between the 2 brushes, which is allowing the map to “leak” in to the void. Such a simple mistake can cause so many errors in your map, that is why it’s always better to make sure there are no leaks from the beginning.

What Causes Leaks?

Leaks can be caused by various things:

• A Gap between 2 brushes which exposes the Void
• An Entity Exposed to the Void
• Water Exposed to the Void
• Displacements exposed to the Void
• AreaPortal Leaks

Finding a Leak

Finding out if you have a leak is a simple process, there are a couple of signs that tell you if you have a leak.

The first sign is if your compile is faster than normal. This usually happens when you have a leak because the leak prevents Hammer from creating a mapname.prt file, which in turn, prevents vvis.exe from running.

The second sign is usually the most noticeable one. If you have water in your map, and your map has a leak, the water should seem invisible in game. From the outside it just seems invisible, but once you get into the water it looks normal. That is one of the most common problems people have when creating water. They think they do not have a leak, but they indeed do have one.

To make sure that your map really does have a leak, you need to check your Compile Log. The Compile log is a log of every compile that you’ve done on your map, and it is always saved with the same name as the map with the .log extension.

Once you look in your compile log, you should search for something that says ****Leaked**** and it should give you an entity, and some coordinates. If you don’t see an entity or any Coordinates, you must place an entity in your map, and recompile it, or Hammer will not be able to find out where the Leak is.

Fixing a Leak

Fixing a leak is pretty simple if you know how. I’ll try to explain the process of fixing a leak for the causes mentioned above.

• Geometry Gaps/Entity Exposed to the Void

This type of leak is pretty straight forward, it means that that you have a gap in your map, which is causing an entity to be exposed to the void.

To find where the leak is, you will have to load up your pointfile, so go to Map>Load Pointfile. Once loaded, you will notice a red line going across your map. It will start off at the entity, and end up in the void outside of the map. The area where the line exits the map, is where your leak is located because the pointfile always gets out of the map through the leak. So just follow the pointfile to that area, and seal up that leak.






• Water Exposed to the Void

If water is exposed to the void, it will cause a leak, thus preventing it from working properly. If you don’t know where the leak is, use the pointfile (Map>Load Pointfile) and find out where the line exits the map into the void.

Leaked:


Fixed:



• Displacements

Displacement leaks are one of the most common leaks. This is caused by a simple displacement brush, that has nothing underneath it, and since displacement brushes are not World Brushes, a leak is caused. You can find the leak, just like any other leak, using the PointFile, but this one will seem different, as the Pointfile will go right through the displacement, this means that it’s not a world brush, and it needs something else to cover it. So just go ahead and create another World Brush covered in the tools/toolsnodraw texture, and place it behind the displacement, to seal the leak.

Leaked:


Fixed:



• Areaportal Leaks

Areaportal Leaks are similiar to Geometry Gap leaks, except an areaportal leak can be caused even if there is nothing being exposed to the void. When creating areaportals, it is crucial that all sides of the brush are touching another World Brush or a leak will occur. To find an Areaportal Leak, just use the same method when finding a Geometry Leak.



Please note that Hammer only tracks 1 leak at a time, so you’ll have to keep recompiling your map and repeating these processes until it doesn’t find anymore leaks.

Thank you for reading my tutorial, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to PM me or leave a comment.

-SGT_kick_ur_ass