Fan Mission: Return to the City by Melan (2010/01/10)

[SneaksieDave]

For the record, here's my result of a quick peek around the first corner (haven't played yet, and not going to spoil it!). Does look like there are a lot of open portals. I get about 7-14 fps here, fluctuating up/down. Core2Duo 2.66, 3G, GF7600; TDM standard, standard.

[Stanley]

Absolutely fabulous mission! Just finished second run (definitely not the last).

 

Thank you very much Melan!

 

Fps drops only in the cloister attic area (GTX275, 1680*1050).

 

(Ghosted, 100% loot)

Edited January 11, 2010 by Stanley

[Goldchocobo]

Goldchocobo, the AA is the culprit. I had 4xSS-AA enabled (on my HD4870/1G), which got me 8 fps when looking at the start in the direction of the city. After switching off AA, I got manageable 25 fps. Although it looks ugly, I'm afraid this map forbids the use of any quality features.

 

 

 

It's not. When I enable 4xAA on my 24" screen (1920x1200), TDM looks just beautiful. The only thing that's slightly annoying are the extremely hard-edged shadows. I'm still experimenting with some Doom3 shaders to have them softened, but it seems that TDM produces really bad graphics errors when I try to enable them.

 

 

 

It seems you are correct Ladro... aa off makes a massive difference.

Many a folk have tried softening doom3 shadows... with some success. However, I would wait for d3 to go open source. Woohoo render-er access!

 

PS: I'm can't wait for a patched version of this map! I'm gonna hold off till then

[AlarusLOL]

Clearly, one of the most beautiful maps for the Darkmod to date IMO. Also, some of the best gameplay. Great job Melan!

 

I also had a big problem with framerate. I put the "r_showtris 2" command into the console and noticed large parts of the map were being rendered, despite being off in the distance. I can understand, however, visportalling a map with architecture like this would probably be a pain. I too can run Crysis and St. Lucia without any problems.

 

This map also likes to crash on me at the very end before I can get to the statistics screen. Can someone clue me in as to what the loot total was? Thanks.

[Stanley]

 

Can someone clue me in as to what the loot total was? Thanks.

 

Total amount of loot is

1615

 

[lowenz]

A little video for this beauty!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlA7OktFCqI

[lowenz]

Little problem: pillar-stucked hammerite!

 

Edited January 12, 2010 by lowenz

[Carnage]

I haven't completely finished it yet but I think this a winner. Have to wait if there will be others, but it will be difficult to surpass this one. Great job Melan! I like the readables that can be found everywhere and visuals are perfect, even though I had to decrease the screen resolution quite a bit. Did had to restart in the beginning because the Archer guard didn't want to move anywhere after quickloading. I also alerted the archer and found that guards that were quite far away also came running. Hope the performance in TDM will be increased in the future, because it spoils the fun a bit. If it wasn't for that, the mission would have been perfect.

[New Horizon]

Little problem: pillar-stucked hammerite!

 

*cough cough* "builder"

[Baddcog]

Hope the performance in TDM will be increased in the future, because it spoils the fun a bit. If it wasn't for that, the mission would have been perfect.

 

It's more of a mission specific thing really. Just like Dromed authors have to do certian things to maintain good performance, they are just slightly different things than Dromed.

 

But this missions performance is being worked on and I think will be pretty decent once finalized.

[PPoe]

Have you ever been behind the gate near starting position? have you found books with text: Delete this text and enter your own? Both can be done.

 

Great mission and great quest for RTCG (rooftop climbing guild).

 

Melan, you have created a masterpiece.

Edited January 12, 2010 by PPoe

[Carnage]

It's more of a mission specific thing really. Just like Dromed authors have to do certian things to maintain good performance, they are just slightly different things than Dromed.

 

But this missions performance is being worked on and I think will be pretty decent once finalized.

 

So performance in general won't be increased in the future? You need quite a decent PC to experience TDM in outside areas at the moment. I think it would be a good idea to add a bit of information (small guide) in the wiki what the best way is to place visportals and build your mission in outside areas. Just some hints and tips or something like that. I for instance had quite some problems with it at the beginning and had to decrease the size of open areas to up the performance. The wiki does decribe quite a bit about visportals but for instance, I didn't really knew which way the visportal side should face, and that's just one example. Of course it's just an idea and can imagine that the whole team is way more busy with other important things

[Melan]

So performance in general won't be increased in the future? You need quite a decent PC to experience TDM in outside areas at the moment. I think it would be a good idea to add a bit of information (small guide) in the wiki what the best way is to place visportals and build your mission in outside areas.

Actually: Creating Large Areas

[Carnage]

Ah still have to learn to use the wiki more effectively . Already looks really good, hope more will come soon

[toshak_fox]

Just started playing and im already creamed my pants. This is outstanding.

Performance is not so good, but this is the price that I am ready to pay for all this beauty.

Thanx-Thanx-Thanx-Thanx-Thanx-Thanx-Thanx-Thanx-Thanx-Thanx!!

[New Horizon]

So performance in general won't be increased in the future?

 

TDM is already quite highly optimized. If we can find more ways of optimizing it, you can bet we'll do it, but we can't really commit to improving performance if we've already squeezed pretty much all we can out of it at the moment.

 

When we get the D3 source code, I'm sure we'll find some ways to tighten things up. With access to the renderer, we'll be able to make a more efficient lightgem routine, but until then I think things are as smooth as we can get them...barring any new discoveries on how to gain a frame here and there.

 

Really, it's going to be about careful use of vis-portals around the map, monster clipping to eliminate unnecessary pathfinding, careful texturing...etc.

[Baddcog]

I don't want to steer off topic too far but area sizes are one comprimise that needs to be made. I don't think this engine was ever intended for huge open areas. In fact I don't even think thief-like gameplay really benefits from them anyway. Dromed wasn't all that great with them either so I think most authors will already be used to keeping things a bit tighter.

The major thing for larger areas would probably be to just keep details down.

[New Horizon]

The major thing for larger areas would probably be to just keep details down.

 

The line of sight probably plays a big part in it too, although I think a mission can have some open areas if some tricks are employed. Say if you're able to see over some buildings to another group of buildings, it might be possible to setup a texture with those far away buildings on it as the visportal...so when the player is seeing them from beyond the distance, poking out over the tops of nearby buildings, they're just a texture. Go through a tunnel and around a turn to get to those buildings...the vis portal turns switches off, and the real buildings are now rendered since you're right there.

 

All kinds of little tricks that could be employed, but that will take some time and experimentation.

[raymeld]

I bumped off the second builder

guarding the door to the main building next to some steps

and tried to hide his corpse but unfortunately couldn't put him down. Anyone else had this problem or do I have to carry him around for the rest of the mission ! Unfortunately , I saved whilst carrying him which means I'll probably have to start again. I've tried all the usual keys to drop him but to no avail.

[Sonosuke]

I bumped off the second builder

guarding the door to the main building next to some steps

and tried to hide his corpse but unfortunately couldn't put him down. Anyone else had this problem or do I have to carry him around for the rest of the mission ! Unfortunately , I saved whilst carrying him which means I'll probably have to start again. I've tried all the usual keys to drop him but to no avail.

 

It seems you will have to restart the map, this is a known bug http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/10446-cant-drop-shouldered-body-twice-now/

[raymeld]

It seems you will have to restart the map, this is a known bug http://modetwo.net/d...body-twice-now/

 

Thanks for that . Mission is such good fun I don't mind starting again ! Reading the bug thread ( bit about shouldering a rat ) was funny too.

[raymeld]

Absolutely superb mission in the true tradition of Thief . This is just why we ( I ) keep on playing . Thank you Melan !

[Carnage]

TDM is already quite highly optimized. If we can find more ways of optimizing it, you can bet we'll do it, but we can't really commit to improving performance if we've already squeezed pretty much all we can out of it at the moment.

 

When we get the D3 source code, I'm sure we'll find some ways to tighten things up. With access to the renderer, we'll be able to make a more efficient lightgem routine, but until then I think things are as smooth as we can get them...barring any new discoveries on how to gain a frame here and there.

 

Really, it's going to be about careful use of vis-portals around the map, monster clipping to eliminate unnecessary pathfinding, careful texturing...etc.

 

So the system specs are quite a bit higher because TDM is way more complex than Doom 3? I can play vanilla Doom with everything on max without any problems, but I had to decrease the quality of TDM quite a bit. Will certainly practice placing visportals properly a lot more. There are a lot of tricks of course to 'fool' the player that he/she is walking in a large scale area . Thanks for the clarification.

Edited January 14, 2010 by Carnage

[greebo]

Yes, TDM is not just Doom 3 with different models and textures. There are several reasons why TDM maps are running slower than the D3 mars maps. A few are CPU-bound and a few are GPU-bound.

 

- TDM AI (pathfinding, visual scan, response, task processing) - maps with more AI are more taxing, with linear scale.

- TDM Lightgem: this is both GPU and CPU-intensive. The game needs to run an additional renderpass, and the CPU is analysing it.

- Stim/Response: the more entities in the map, the more processing is done. The code works interleaved, but you notice it when hitting a few hundred entities with Stims.

- Sound propagation is performed for each suspicious sound in the map, literally every footstep is taking up CPU time, scaling up with distance and the number of portals to be flooded.

- Frobhighlighting checks are performed each frame in the code

- Our models are usually higher-poly than the D3 ones, and they are used in a generic way.

- The D3 maps are highly optimised and map models are used to decrease poly or shadow count wherever possible. Our generic TDM models cannot "know" where they are used: you wouldn't see a 2000 shadowcasting poly model on a distant rooftop in D3 maps, TDM mappers might do that).

- Our textures are usually 1024x1024, D3 ones are usually a quarter of that size.

- TDM has ambient light shader passes and conditional frob-highlight stages in each material.

- TDM has a more demanding interaction shader switched on by default.

- TDM Mappers often like to use shadows more extensively than necessary, shadowcasting lights and models are the number one resource hog.

- TDM Mappers are not yet experienced in planning out their maps with performance in mind, squeezing out FPS needs a bit of learning, the D3 mappers exactly knew what they were doing.

- TDM maps are not narrow corridors mostly.

- Our code is not fully optimised yet, it's not stripped down to its bones, hence specialising it heavily, like you would do with a game that is shipped to customers once and then never used again. Our development branches will not stop to evolve, we need maintainable code first and foremost, which often is in contrast to performance interests.

- I probably forgot something.

[rebb]

Any Mapper who is working with the Doom3 Engine should really really know about www.iddevnet.com and it's content, specifically

 

• http://www.iddevnet......./visportals. php and
• http://www.iddevnet....tor_Performance ( many things there apply to Doom3 as well, altho some of the CVars are only available in Quake4 )

when it comes to optimizing their maps.

 

That site should pretty much be the Bible for anyone doing anything with the Doom3 Engine.

 

This isn't aimed at anyone in particular btw, just a general comment.