Some Questions About Darkradiant

[Bukary]

Not at all. Welcome to the wonderful world of Doom 3 map design, where there is no such thing as a "BSP hole"*.

Nice to know that one can rotate brushes. It was forbidden in DromEd. But I noticed that when I started using free rotate option some warnings appeared in the console during bsp:

 

Warning: BuildOptTriangles: couldn't locate opposite
WARNING: backwards triangle in input!

 

What's wrong?

 

Yes it is - a very stark contrast to the sort of things the Unforeseen Consequences lot were posting as their "just a few days with Radiant" screenshots...

I'm not sure if I understand... There was/is some "Unforseen Consequences" DM project/mod? Are there any screenshots?

[New Horizon]

I'm not sure if I understand... There was/is some "Unforseen Consequences" DM project/mod? Are there any screenshots?

 

 

There was, but as far as I know...it is dead. It just wasn't being realistic about what it was trying to do, and what it was doing was essentially copying the plots of the original Thief missions and saying that it was a tribute. In addition, the team suddenly decided that it was important to focus on having a complete 'zombie' division and the whole thing lost credibility pretty fast.

[Bukary]

There was, but as far as I know...it is dead. It just wasn't being realistic about what it was trying to do, and what it was doing was essentially copying the plots of the original Thief missions and saying that it was a tribute. In addition, the team suddenly decided that it was important to focus on having a complete 'zombie' division and the whole thing lost credibility pretty fast.

Hmmm... I found this thread. Lots of reading...

[SneaksieDave]

I'm still not sure if the zombie guy who joined up - I can't remember his name, he does doodles of zombies and posts them - was pulling everyone's chain or not. He seemed like he was goofing on the project, but when put to question, would defend it and seem serious.

 

Bukary, expect to see that backward triangle warning a LOT. In larger maps, perhaps hundreds or thousands of times. I'm not sure exactly what it's trying to indicate (I'm sure someone here knows) but I haven't seen it cause a problem... yet.

[Gildoran]

I think the idDev site says you can usually safely ignore those sorts of warnings, as they happen as a result of the compiler optimizing triangles, and are usually harmless.

[sparhawk]

I'm still not sure if the zombie guy who joined up - I can't remember his name, he does doodles of zombies and posts them - was pulling everyone's chain or not. He seemed like he was goofing on the project, but when put to question, would defend it and seem serious.

 

That's why I never was sure wether he was serious or not, but I tended to think he was not. Either that, or he had completely lost is touch with reality.

[New Horizon]

That's why I never was sure wether he was serious or not, but I tended to think he was not. Either that, or he had completely lost is touch with reality.

 

Whatever he was, he took it so far that it completely made the project look foolish. It was impossible to even consider the project at that point.

[OrbWeaver]

Nice to know that one can rotate brushes. It was forbidden in DromEd. But I noticed that when I started using free rotate option some warnings appeared in the console during bsp:

 

To add to what I said about rotating brushes - it is still very advisable to make sure that the vertices are aligned to the grid, even without BSP holes you can still get "sparklies" (little flickering white lines along triangle boundaries where the geometry is off by a small amount).

 

For instance, if you want an angled wall, it is better to create a normal brush and then move the corners (using the E key) into position, rather than rotating the brush and dumping it into place.

 

If you actually want something rotated, such as a block in the middle of a room, then just using the rotate tool is fine.

[Dram]

Not at all. Welcome to the wonderful world of Doom 3 map design, where there is no such thing as a "BSP hole"

 

Unfortunately that is incorrect. I get holes occassionally and this is due to 1) a random factor or 2) fucking around with brushes too much.

 

Try to avoid brushes if you can. If you get many messages like "removed x degenerate triangles" that's where holes can occur. I can post an example if you don't believe me.

 

Basically brushes are fine if used is normal shapes such as boxes or rectangles, but are much more likely to break when they are not so alligned with the grid or are too small etc. I used to use brushes a lot too, until I had to restart the castle map cos of the fuckups. I'm practically mapping mostly in a 3d app.

 

Orb, I'm not trying to piss you of, just trying to clear up the BSP holes issue - it's still there basically. Though I will admit it's much less common, if not rare

[OrbWeaver]

Unfortunately that is incorrect. I get holes occassionally and this is due to 1) a random factor or 2) fucking around with brushes too much.

 

Try to avoid brushes if you can. If you get many messages like "removed x degenerate triangles" that's where holes can occur. I can post an example if you don't believe me.

 

Please do.

 

Basically brushes are fine if used is normal shapes such as boxes or rectangles, but are much more likely to break when they are not so alligned with the grid or are too small etc. I used to use brushes a lot too, until I had to restart the castle map cos of the fuckups. I'm practically mapping mostly in a 3d app.

 

As I said in my follow-up to the earlier comment, everthing should always be aligned to the grid. Otherwise you get floating point errors which result in sparklies (which I guess could be seen as very small BSP holes).

 

Orb, I'm not trying to piss you of, just trying to clear up the BSP holes issue - it's still there basically. Though I will admit it's much less common, if not rare

 

No problem. I've never seen one in ordinary mapping, although as I mentioned I did get something like that when using the vertex editing tool to make a brush into a weird shape. Maybe yours is a similar situation.

[Bukary]

Try to avoid brushes if you can. If you get many messages like "removed x degenerate triangles" that's where holes can occur.

I've seen this message many times while loading original Doom3 levels.

 

I've been reading Gildorans tutorial about arches. Do you think this method (lost of vertex editing) is wrong then?

 

I'm practically mapping mostly in a 3d app.

And I was hoping for another DromEd experience. I'm not very good at 3d applications. Does changing complex brushes into func_static help?

[SneaksieDave]

I haven't been using any modelling yet either - all done in DoomEd so far. It'll never give the super fine level of detail of making stuff in Lightwave, sure, but you can still do great stuff.

[OrbWeaver]

I've been reading Gildorans tutorial about arches. Do you think this method (lost of vertex editing) is wrong then?

 

Edge editing (with the E key) is fine, as this keeps pairs of vertices aligned. Using the V key with brushes (not patches) MAY cause problems if done wildly.

 

And I was hoping for another DromEd experience. I'm not very good at 3d applications. Does changing complex brushes into func_static help?

 

It is often a good idea to change small pieces of complex brushwork into func_statics to keep the polycount down.

 

Don't worry though, although there may be some situations where holes occur, this is not T3Ed and you do not need to break into a 3D app to add every detail item.

[SneaksieDave]

It is often a good idea to change small pieces of complex brushwork into func_statics to keep the polycount down.

That caught me. So, if I set a brush or brushes to be func_statics, are they treated as models or patches, that is, they don't complicate the BSP tree? Or am I misunderstanding? Does it have any other effect, good or bad? You've got me wondering if I can get more FPS by simply making battlements into func_statics.

[OrbWeaver]

That caught me. So, if I set a brush or brushes to be func_statics, are they treated as models or patches, that is, they don't complicate the BSP tree? Or am I misunderstanding? Does it have any other effect, good or bad? You've got me wondering if I can get more FPS by simply making battlements into func_statics.

 

Yes, a func_static is removed from the BSP tree and treated like an instantiated model. It has the advantage of not carving surfaces, which reduces polycount (but may increase lightcount), but the small disadvantage of adding another entity to the list. I have also had problems with texture alignment on func_statics.

 

I don't think converting stuff to func_statics will have much of an effect on framerates, but if you are seeing sparklies or the triangle arrangement with r_showTris looks excessive it may be worth a try.

 

Patches do cut the BSP by the way, you might expect them not to but they do.

[Dram]

Whoa, have'nt been in this thread for a while. Anyways, I always make a lot of my brush work into a func_static and it did actually increase my fps when there was a lot of brushes - from around 24 to 28 or so (the map was badly optimized, in spots 5 lights hit a surface).

 

In regards to making maps in a modelling app - I only make things like arches, fences, gates, and pillars in it as patch meshes don't look as good when making a rounded pillar base. But otherwise all of my walls are brushes and patches.

 

@Orb: Gimme sec I'll go take a screenie of a bsp hole that is currently driving me crazy and it is aligned to grid.

[Dram]

http://img98.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image18xg.jpg

 

Can you see the hole? I'm going crazy trying to fix it as no matter what I do it still fucks it up - I delete the brush and put a new one and it still fucks up, I cut the brush and it still fucks up. Oh shit, I just realised that D3 re-joins cut brushes when their textures match aargh. Well I'm gonna try that later.

[OrbWeaver]

That's interesting, I've never seen anything like that. Can you post the map somewhere?

[drumple]

that can happen when patches intersect brushes.. however i don't see any patches there.. that is wierd.

[Dram]

that can happen when patches intersect brushes.. however i don't see any patches there.. that is wierd.

 

!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I'll try that! The pillar wall type thing next to the wall touches the wall and is a patch.

 

@Orb: There's a lot of crap that i made custom for it, including textures models etc so the download would be ~100mb which means it'd take years to upload. I'll try changing that patch to a brush and see how that turns out.

[Springheel]

Is it "Darkradiant" or "Dark Radiant"?

[New Horizon]

Is it "Darkradiant" or "Dark Radiant"?

 

I would say Dark Radiant.

[OrbWeaver]

I've been using DarkRadiant, as it fits in with GtkRadiant and D3Radiant.

 

Also spaces in pathnames are to be avoided so it makes sense to have the actual name space-free as well.

[Fingernail]

I've suggested to the Doom3world.org community that we team up to improve GtkRadiant generally, to which all would benefit. As in, rather than individuals contribute to the codebase, have a central website (or wiki) where we can identify improvements and keep track of what we as an editing community think needs doing.

 

We'll see what happens. Probably nothing.

 

Of course, that wouldn't have too much impact on DarkRadiant (although we'd benefit from more user-friendliness), because we'd still need more specific features.

[OrbWeaver]

I've suggested to the Doom3world.org community that we team up to improve GtkRadiant generally, to which all would benefit. As in, rather than individuals contribute to the codebase, have a central website (or wiki) where we can identify improvements and keep track of what we as an editing community think needs doing.

 

Basically that's what I do anyway - if there is something we need that I think might be of interest to GtkRadiant in general, I suggest it to Spog. This not only benefits the community as a whole but also makes my life easier since he knows the code well and can implement things in a fraction of the time.