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So, what are you working on right now?


Springheel

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Another thing you can do (outside of breaking up the brush, adding more visportals, etc) is to gain more control over the radius of the light and see if it's intersecting with another light. One of the downsides to the existing TDM torch entities is that you can't see the radius of the attached light in DR so there's no way to know for sure if you've got overlapping lights. What I normally end up doing is:

 

1) go into the torch entity and look for the spawnarg "def_attach". For a torch it will normally be set to "light_torchflame_small", so replace it with "-".

2) Create a light_torchflame_small and bind it to the torch entity with the bind spawnarg, and then drag it so that the center of the light is where the torch would be.

 

This effectively gets you the same torch, at the cost of an extra entity, but you now get to see exactly what the radius of your torch light is, and you can modify it accordingly so as to eliminate overlap.

Edited by Moonbo

But you should walk having internal dignity. Be a wonderful person who can dance pleasantly to the rhythm of the universe.

-Sun Myung Moon

 

My work blog: gfleisher.blogspot.com

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@Capela

Looks really good! Are you using a moving torch flame or a static?

 

static one. I have some lights all over to produce the effect of moonlinght,maybe thats the problem, i will folow the tips that you give me to see whats the problem. Ty

Edited by Capela
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Oh that's probably your performance problem. As far as I understand, overlapping light is a big performance drain, as the engine is kinda based around darkness. No expert, but that's the way I see it :)

 

Try an ambient light, with a white color plus a little bit of blue, and then turn the strength down to around 8-12, that seems to be the good ranges. One ambient light can cover your whole map, but in some cases you might want the light to differ in areas.

 

As for the static, I've used them mainly too, to save performance, and then a few select moving flames where I want attention at. :)

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I have some lights all over to produce the effect of moonlinght,maybe thats the problem,

set them to noshadows. Overlapping lights are very performance-hungry, and you should avoid having more then 2-3 shadowcasting lights overlapping each other.

@Moonbo: As far as I experienced the default light radius for most lights is 260 260 260. This can be changed via "set light_radius on flame" "x y z"

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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@Capela. Usually one may need to make outside lights noshadows. This is of course bad if the light is on a wall and light seeps through the wall.

 

You could get away by making lights that hang over the streets. These you could easily make into noshadows and nobody would notice.

 

Also if you feel your scene is performing poorly, you should make detail things into func_statics and make these func_statics into noshadow. As a rule of a thumb: everything in the scene should be func_statics, expect the sealing geometry. As another rule of a thumb: func_statics should be nearly always noshadows, unless they are big enough to make a shadows that have a gameplay purpose. Of course, feel free to deviate for dramatic purposes, but really: a random prop wine bottle does not need a shadow. If it is a wine bottle on a pedelstal that is designed to capture the players attention, then maybe turn on the shadow.

 

For instance, that tower: it could could be a a bunch of func_statics. The core of the tower would be func_static with shadows on. All the detail pieces and patches would be func_statics with shadows off.

You get good looks, and overall the shadows the tower casts are okay, but you save all the useless detail shadow tris the player will never detect.

 

I also recommend analysing poorly performing scenes with r_showprimitives 1. Pay attention to the amount of tris and shadow tris. If a lot ot shdw tris are generated, you could easily save on them with the technique I described above.

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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Here is how I see one should build an optimized cityscape:

aMaxnW7.png

 

See? Everything is func_statics except the sealing geometry. Buildings are broken down into func_statics that should cast a light and that should not. Small detail objects are generally noshadows 1 in order to save tris. One should pay special attention to patches, because they are particlularily hungry for shadow triangles. Large structures that make a shadow large enough to have a gameplay effect always have shadows on.

 

In each scene you can leave some detail objects with shadows on in order to generate a dramatic shadowing effect, but overall shadows should be set off in large city scenes as they tend to be very tris heavy.

 

Note that a single structure is left worldspawn and that is because it is a compartmentalization helper. It is worldspawn so that the visportal would work to break down vistas.

 

Func_staticification and "noshadow 1" are surprisingly effective to gain performance. Beleaguered fence was my first mission. The opening scene was a city scape of relatively simplicity. Still it was quite sluggish in performance. Later I updated the mission and made things into func_statics and noshadow. The performance went up a lot but the visual quality was not diminished at all. Worldspawn geometry and shadows can make a big effect.

 

Hopefully this helps new mappers to gain performance in their works.

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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I have amended Sotha's picture because it didn't take into account locations where the player would be right next to some of the FS where you would want shadows to be cast. Also you would us the building themselfes to seal against. And where in some instances you would use a sky portal textured brush to seal.

post-496-0-86538600-1369579542_thumb.png

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@dema,

Thanks!

 

@biker,

Sure, player proximity may be grounds to set something to cast shadows. However, often building details are windows, narrow exterior beamwork, bricks and stuff that is so small the really don't need to cast shadows even if the player is near. Like those model windows you can smack into walls, for example.

 

I do agree that stuff like canopies on a doorway or other stuff that cast a shadow the player can hide in certainly need a shadow.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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[troll]

Are noshadows lights/objects the invisible walls of The Dark Mod?

[/troll]

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Hey that looks cool.

(Reminds me I wish we had more trees, but that's not your fault...)

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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It looks funny what you've done with the carpets. But I fairly doubt someone would place them like this in real life ;)

 

Anyways, can't wait to play your mission :rolleyes:

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Just finally finished optimization and most of the detail correction, so I felt like I had share this with you guys, as next up is AI and loot :)

(pic)

 

Good lord that looks good! Dammit!

 

Keep up the good work. In visual quality, that looks like it is from an AAA-title, rather than TDM. Impeccable attention to detail. Well balanced. Every detail well thought of. On which engine have you mapped before? Either you have a natural talent or you have a lot of previous experience. Possibly both.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Wow thanks man! Rest assured that all the compliments you guys are throwing at me, are motivating me to keep working, rather than just boosting an ego :)

 

As for previous editing, I've done a couple of never finished maps for multiplayer back in AVP2 and FEAR.

The Talon engine was very alike, but it seems most editors follow the same basic layout, so far.

 

I did one map for Crysis Wars, that I actually saved my "trailer" of, way back, which was my first real successful mapping quest, though I'm sure it never got played by more than a couple of people. As Crysis didn't use occlusion, it was fairly easy to optimize for multiplay usage.

http://youtu.be/qfMh0_GaUDU

 

Also did a couple of maps for C&C: Generals, because the landscaping was fun, where the basic theme was "bigger is better".

Edited by Kvorning
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Nice light and shadows :) The floor tiles, "kinda" break the style a bit though. When I think ballroom, I think either wooden bracket floor, or smooth marble. There's some awesome marble textures I wish I could find room for in my map, have you browsed them?

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Nice light and shadows :) The floor tiles, "kinda" break the style a bit though. When I think ballroom, I think either wooden bracket floor, or smooth marble. There's some awesome marble textures I wish I could find room for in my map, have you browsed them?

Quite an admirer of your work myself!

I got some trouble with this reflective floor tile so it loooks not as supposed to. Maybe marble will do will see

Edited by someTaff

What excuse do we have not to sculpt, and sculpt, and sculpt, until the job is done?

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Thanks man, though I've had a couple problems with the reflective surfaces myself, or the "polished" ones, I don't know if there's a shaderParm you can use to adjust the amount or something like that:P

 

All in all, there's still so many different textures, that there's always the right one for the right surface :) The guys who compiled this mod really are the ones, who did an amazing job, and can't wait for V.2.

Edited by Kvorning
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After some advise i just change the lights that where doing the moonlight effect to noshadows and my fps come to normal.

 

But another time it seems that i choose something to big to work for the free time i have to work on this project, im realy think to give up.. :blush:

 

flakebridge201305272009.jpg

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I have amended Sotha's picture because it didn't take into account locations where the player would be right next to some of the FS where you would want shadows to be cast. Also you would us the building themselfes to seal against. And where in some instances you would use a sky portal textured brush to seal.

 

When working with sky portals I've discovered that the engine renders all caulc as sky portal IF there is at least one face with the Sky portal texture in the same leaf/location as you're currently in. And caulc surfaces doesn't generate tris as one may see with r_showtris 1.

Therefore you don't need to paint the whole "ceiling" with skyportal, you just need a small caulc box in the air with one side sky portal, one box "here and there". :)

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