RJFerret

That's just because all the lights overlap their neighboring lights in that map. If you remove them, drawcalls drop to 300-1800 range, with the average being around 1300 outside.

Yes, simple answer, don't scale models. Complex answer, you can replace their clipmodel (you might not have noticed your model's physics was off) and shadow with brush built alternatives. See wiki pages on clipmodel. In Common textures, "shadow" and "shadowcaulk" are textures you might use on a third nonsolid object to made an appropriate shadow cast. Is it an attached flame/light? If so, you can't with the S/R system, need to script it. If you have a named entity light, then set up a S/R response on the object that'll get hit by the water arrow, choose response "water". Add the appropriate Response Effect for the type of light after selecting your light entity. Would the AI be in sight of the player? The thought I have to "reset" the alert would be to actually replace the AI with one that hasn't been alerted at all yet. In other words, use func_remove on the alerted one, and teleport in one you've stored off in a box elsewhere. This would also require there being a good spot to teleport a fresh AI in for your purpose. Does the floor door need to be solid? Perhaps make it nonsolid, assuming you can still seal the area/visportal properly. I don't know about clock fingers. Simply place the rat AAS entity in the area your rats would need to go in the future, just like if you actually put rats there. Done. AAS will be created for that size AI, and when you teleport rats in there in the future, they'll be able to walk around. Note, if you simply have rats placed in your map, you don't need to use the separate AAS entity. It's only to create an AAS of that size when the rats aren't in the map already. I also can't help with reskinning the flag, but others should be along soon with more input!

You might be reading beyond what I was saying? I have no problem with missions aimed at better hardware. As I stated, it just impacts who can access your mission, it's a design choice. (And obviously, my maps appreciate better hardware, having higher drawcall values.) I don't know if anyone has insisted of such. My impression is there are plenty of missions that won't run on inexpensive hardware already, but I've never looked in to it. I have higher end hardware, so am relatively clueless in that regard. I also don't know if design changes would improve the performance of those missions. However, suggesting missions should be designed to intentionally limit who can run them does seem silly to me, especially since we have had many high quality missions designed efficiently, which has the added benefit of not excluding the audience. A ramification of encouraging poor performing maps that can only be run on "better hardware" is TDM reputation, if people try it and find they can't run things, or maps perform poorly, they won't recommend it to others, or be interested in designing for it. Similarly if die hard players can no longer play, community suffers again. I don't believe either of those things are likely to take place however, given all the missions released this year typically have hundreds of drawcalls, rather than over a thousand, most places, and again, I don't believe most design around such parameters.

Actually the rooms were at the lowest end of those numbers. It's big open outdoor areas with lots of lights that went into the four digits. Gatehouse is a good example, most of the mission features rooms in the low hundreds, rarely breaking 500. Similarly compare WS3 (rooms at 300+) to WS2 (outdoors, with a very high lowest range). Poets is an exception, as I didn't go into the side rooms, and the main room features multiple overlapping lights. Go into the side room and you are looking at 128-137. Go upstairs to that big room with multiple non-overlapping lights and it's 400+/-. And in a room you can typically only view a small portion of it, so it's hard to get many overlapping lights in view compared to a street view.

Heh, that's not moving forward! Designing smartly and efficiently is progress, being inefficient and suggesting folks spend money on different hardware is moving backward in my opinion. My first map had horrible performance compared to my second. There is no default drawcall value. There are just impacts from designing so that folks have poor performance. That's a choice. I was about to say most recent missions haven't gone near that, but let's actually take a look at those released this year (since this issue has come up before)... Note, I have a wider field of view set, so my drawcall numbers are higher than typical: Poets: 800-1200 Reputation: 600-1200 (but most typically 1000) Breaking Out: 300-1500 Noble Home: 800-1400 InnBiz: 500-1600 (from making it, I do know a spot and direction to look which is 1900) WS3: 300-1100 WS2: 900-1900 Gatehouse: 300-1400 Window: 400-2000 (my first mission, when I was more ignorant) Interestingly consistent results considering I don't believe most people check drawcalls while mapping or have target goals. Note also, those peaks aren't areas that players spend much time, they tend to be large open areas with long sight lines and many, perhaps overlapping, lights. Which reminds me, drawcalls aren't the final measure of performance, fewer lights will result in lower drawcalls, but there can still be an overload of tris being rendered, and shadows, that'll slow things down for certain hardware. PS: 1500 wasn't a default value, it was considered a guide to stay below, with under 1000 a target to shoot for. If you consider 1500 your default, you'll find the performance poor enough to be noticeable and folks might comment. Much higher than that, and you are likely to only have your mission accessible to limited hardware. PPS: For others who wish to create maps with lower drawcalls/better performance, proper visportals, limited sight lines and not overlapping lights are key. Using LOD (level of detail) and func_statics w/noshadows also helps. The wiki article, "Performance: Essential Must-Knows" has further details.

Yups, the wiki list of missions, you can even sort by undead (note, it doesn't discriminate between skeletons/ghosts and zombies): http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod

Yikes, over 3000!? Well, if you're already looking at single digit FPS for some systems, 4100 wouldn't be any worse, as it'd still be single digit FPS! LOL In my case the replacement reduced drawcalls 25%, but below 1000 in both cases (686 to 511), which on my system allows for 60 fps either way. The LOD low poly version reduced drawcalls 10% as best I can figure (trying to not get other polygons rendered in the wider field of view from moving back)--which is more significant than it looks since most objects in view aren't changing. But to answer your question Spring, the impact of excessive drawcalls would depend entirely on the individual hardware. For those with very high end hardware, there might be no impact, they'd get over 30 FPS either way. For those with less expensive hardware, it might be unplayable regardless. Those that have "middle" hardware that can handle a significant amount, but are taxed by going over their ability, would see the biggest benefit from lowering the drawcalls a bunch, as they'd be crippled by the too high, and might get teens or twenty-something FPS if it was lowered to be within their capability.

These are simply brilliant. I just replaced a unnatural patch tube with embedded plant models trying to break up its profile, with what look like actual plants, even having foliage protrude through metal fencing at the end. Thanks so much!

Now that I see you have them working and included in a mission in the other thread, any chance of zipping up the complete assets for the rest of us to download please?

The stairs would be my doing (there were multiple revisions with changes to stairs to fix AI pathing, I replaced that model toward the end). So the aesthetics of that I take responsibility for. Testing's also a matter of priorities though. A couple of the things pictured were flagged, and decided against altering. There were game-play affecting things implemented instead. Wise choices in my judgment. More voices finding the same things wouldn't have altered them. Conversely, more voices with opposing subjective viewpoints often water down projects (too many cooks). And sometimes additional beta tester's feedback is nothing more than, "I played it, it worked, congrats." (That was the actual feedback from a couple on my very first mission's initial beta round. Then there was an experienced mapper who suggested subjective design changes that didn't match the venue, and others that didn't make structural design sense.) But yes, I agree there were limited testers here, however one of them is not just pro, but also rather talented at it (not me!) I believe Digi accurately called it when he suggested it's a small map that wouldn't require a massive amount of testers--I imagine next time (if he's still willing for there to be a next) there'll be more. In this case, there are other changes I'd personally make before those pictured. I fully expect Digi's next work to be more polished (in part due to your/our feedback). Nobody's very first map represents the work of a professional, experienced mapper. However in this case, the core elements were impressively executed and it initially was surprisingly clean. The changes made resolved non-apparent issues (compared to some of those, which are mostly apparent choices), and also provided knowledge for future creations.

http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=3769

You know you are addicted to TheDarkMod when... ...you have a copy of the game code on your phone.

Curious, I have a couple func_shaking in my current WIP targeted by a switch (via a relay technically) that stop/start happily. Edit: But I just confirmed a func_pendulum keeps swinging away. That's a bummer, you couldn't have shutters close to stop evident wind or the like. Edit again: Ah, the func_shaking specifically says to trigger it to turn it on/off, by implication the others don't. Unless someone else has better info or a scripted workaround, might that be worth a feature request for a future version? Edit three: Func_shaking provides yaw/pitch/roll, I don't know your application, might you be able to simulate the effect you seek using it, since it may be toggled on/off? Edit four: Also func_rotating will either turn on/off, or reverse it's direction upon being toggled, so it might simulate pendulum movement well enough for your purpose perhaps?

Seconded. OK, then link? (Going to svn.thedarkmod.com redirects to an https:// 404 error, no list of files to even search manually à la an ftp file repository.)

Yes, simply trigger it to toggle pause/unpause. I've used both and found them to work as advertised on the tin (IE, commented in DR.) func_bobbing: speed is seconds to complete a bobbing cycle, so higher is slower. You would use "phase" to offset from another. func_pendulum: speed is angle to the swing, so larger is faster. Again phase offsets from another. I've commonly used values of 2, 3 (lamps) and 5 (sign).

Not that I drink often, but this would be why when I do, there's caffeine involved. Zzz...

Mine's on my Google calendar, as much to be sure I take care of myself/treat myself to something I normally might not/prioritize myself (like doodling around in DR). Once past the age to drive, vote, then drink...I stopped keeping track of age, not because it is significant in any way, but just because it's not, and I honestly wouldn't remember. (Which leads to some humor for people if they ask and I have to do the math from my year of birth when they realize I truly haven't a clue.) Either way, enjoy it!

I'd love to replace an unimpressive patch "hedge" in a WIP with them too when LOD are available.

My use case was much more basic, no intervening walls/portals, but I ended up just using multiple projection lights to simulate "parallelness", and get useful shadows on the right surfaces where they'd actually cast. I'm hoping, to fit the "simple" part of the request here, the term parallel wasn't meant specifically, or it moves out of "newbie" territory, heh.

Parallel lights are tricky but it's perfectly doable. Here's the way I do it... Do you need what is technically called a "parallel light", for shadows? Or are you looking for the simple "ambient_world" that most missions use for simulated day/moonlight? (Which I typically get by importing the start stuff prefabs from the "misc" folder along with starting player items, etc. at the beginning of map creation.) The technical parallel lights have tricky ramifications, only hit surfaces at certain angles, etc., see here: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Light_Properties#Parallel_Light There's also a section on ambient_world in that link.

Not a continuing thread as such, afaik. I've seen two general types of threads people have done in the past, some where they have created map geometry, and offer it up for someone else to finish/embellish with story. And vice-versa, there was a thread once of someone's story ideas, who didn't find they had mapping desires/skills. If it's inspiration you seek, welcome to the travails of creativity?

Aw, and I'd done up a picture showing it and everything. Since you mention models and SEED, there are models and SEED entities in the back right of the pic that I'll post anyway. ;-)

Wouldn't it be more correct to say that func_static will be rendered despite the visportal being closed? I have exactly that design in an FM, the portals close (red), other things in that visleaf are not rendered (those that can be seen), just the part I need displayed is, although the visportal is actually closed.

Correct, folks simply drop the PK4 into the FM folder, the game does the rest (creates the "poets" folder, etc.) yw!

As a tester, I must say this is one of the cleanest, well put together missions I've had the pleasure of checking out. It was playable and fun from the start. Kudos for a rather nicely designed first mission Digi!