Hall Of Mirrors
This page is intended to educate about the mapper's nightmare called Hall of Mirrors. It is a work in progress so please feel free to contribute. I (Mosquito) will be doing research on HOM to try to find the best and easiest explanation. For now though, I found a site that explains it a little bit:
If you read that and kinda went... huh? Here's my unofficial translation:
If you have created wall that is on the very outskirts of your level, it is said to be on the end. It means that what is on the other side of the wall, is the stuff that surrounds your entire level. If you have a hole, or a transparent texture that allows the player to view the outside stuff, the game doesn't render it properly. Instead of showing an expansive blackness, the game tries to redraw the last thing that was in the space. This could be the corner of a wall, or anything. What you see in the end is an infinitely (spelling?) repeating texture.
That is why it is called the HOM effect. Because it is like staring into a mirror that can be viewed in another mirror, thus creating an endless picture.
Again, this might be a feeble explanation, so if you have a better one, please add it.
An example using Half-Life can be viewed with the link below:
NOTE → HOM's Are VERY VERY Bad, and Ugly !
Comments
Mosquito: Is there a page that lists common mapping errors? Errors such as the HOM effect and BSP hols and possible textures not working, I don't know any others. If there isn't I think we should make one. A page like that can be very helpful for newbie mappers that have a similar problem and can't figure out what to do. Pages like the BSP hole are very helpful for someone that doesn't know what to do. I think we need to cover more problems in such detail as that.
Category Mapping
Category To Do – merge into BSP Hole
