Quote from HMW on March 4, 2013, 4:19 pm

OK, I'm not sure what to say about all this, except that I am really against the strategy of just blindly slapping diagonal hints in any corner without thinking. It really depends on the situation whether that's a good idea or not. (In Jose's last example above it's actually a very good solution.)

Perhaps my original proposed question was too simple, since it didn't indicate the placement of complex models, textures and other expensive things you would want to hide, and I also left out the rooms at both ends of the hallway. It was just meant as a simple example of how two coplanar bsp cuts can prevent anything past them from being drawn.

I certainly did not intend to spawn this stupid religious debate over what is THE best way to do things in what is, as msleeper noted, just one specific example.

So, sorry for that.

Edit: let's try something different:

test.png

Red areas indicate complex / expensive objects. How do we optimise this?
I'll leave it to you guys to come up with possible answers. I have no doubt that there's more than one way to do it; the actual multiple-choice question could be a "check all correct answers" type.

A VMF version is attached in case you want to experiment. I got it down to having at most 2 expensive objects visible from almost every point in the map, with the 2-block ones counting as a single object. (Also take the player's FOV into account!)

Good luck!