Now it is possible to set the "form" of the clipping
The syntax has a little changed, now you have to set the key "farclip" to a string like "form + one or two value".
For example setting it to the value "sphere 256" will clip the func_static if you are farther than 256 game unit from its origin. Sphere is the former behaviour. Just imagine a sphere of 256 unit radius, if you are outside of it, your func_static is clipped.
If you prefer a cubic clipping, just put the value "cube 256".
You can also have cylinder, for example "cylinder_z 256 192" specify a cylinder along the z-axis, that have a radius of 256 and a height of 192. "cylinder_x" and "cylinder_y" exist too.
One of the more interesting is "cone_z". That's the perfect form for grass. I invented it because while I was testing with usual sphere form, that was not very fine because if your player (or a spectator) fly over the scene, all grass was disappearing. However, even with a high cylinder form, I was able to see the "trick". I wanted something that does less clipping while I go higher. Now with "cone_z 256", if you are at the same level than the func_static origin, you got the clip at 256 game unit away from it, but for every unit of distance along the z-axis you have got with its origin you have got one unit of radius more before clipping. The clipping frontier looks like this: \_/
Others forms are box_*, ellipse_*, square_infinite_*, circle_infinite_* and pyramid_* ('*' means 'x', 'y' or 'z').
The distance is now rounded to the closest multiplier of 64, to better fit the gridsize of your map.
Well I hope I don't confuse you too much, I realize that I should probably write a full tutorial about that
very, very cool! is there any way I can test that with models in my maps? Sorry for these dumb question but an ol' guy like me can barely keep up to speed here ...
BTW you need the last qvm for that
I still have some work to put on this, for instance my func_static don't register to the PVS tab -_-' so wait two or three days before testing it!