Bikerdude: - questions

[Bikerdude]

blah - bloody little typo, dmapping now to see if that was the problem..

 

yup its was me, I need some sleep..lol

[nbohr1more]

Yeah, don't stay up too late Biker. I don't want you to end-up like some WoW enthusiast dead at the keyboard. Get some rest for ye health.

[LEGION]

Either he or me on alcohol intoxication, who´s it gonna be? I guess Biker is more valuable...

[Bikerdude]

well Im almost done, just gotta get the 2 objective to work then Im just waiting on Ungoliant and the remainder of the readables..

[LEGION]

Are you sure that you haven´t planned this up-building of tension while sitting on the finished mission? I have a feeling that you´ll release exactly on 11:59 PM...

[nbohr1more]

I am loosing it, thinking about you all bombed-out on booze in front of your HDTV surrounded by Halloween decor with your girlfriend shaking her head in pure bafflement... LEGION you need a reality show

[Bikerdude]

questions:

 

what the best way to get an objective to complete when I drop an entity at a location..?

 

never mind - fixed it!

Edited November 1, 2010 by Bikerdude

[LEGION]

No Nils, it´s not that shiny (you forgot to mention my 5.1-headphones!!!), no girlfriend shaking her head, because she´s already asleep. (it´s nearly 5 in the morning in my galaxy here, though she surely would be if she could´ve seen what I did in the kitchen minutes ago, I, *grin*, I killed all of her *Pflaumenschnaps* she made a year ago to get drunk again, now no alcohol is left except some really untasty stuff I won´t touch...) No decor either, except the Spawn-figurine right next to me and all the figure´s from the 'Legacy Of Kain Series', but they´re there all the time... Oh, but we had pumpkin to eat last evening, but I didn´t liked it...

 

Oh, sorry Biker, I can imagine how disappointing this will be for you because you´re awaiting an solution for your question, but I scanned the wiki but, oh, you fixed it already!

Edited November 1, 2010 by LEGION

[Bikerdude]

right will be releasing the map to my testers for the final run though. Ungoliant will be staying onf a few hours to offer tech supp etc.

[Bikerdude]

question:

 

what causes aas to become corrupted after it was tested to be fine..? I ask because the Ai in my cathedral map are getting stuck and sitting down in the wrong places despite the fact I dmapped a fresh etc.

 

Is there anythunbg the player can do (such as runAAS?) or will I have to release a updated version..?

Edited November 12, 2010 by Bikerdude

[grayman]

question:

 

what causes aas to become corrupted after it was tested to be fine..? I ask because the Ai in my cathedral map are getting stuck and sitting down in the wrong places despite the fact I dmapped a fresh etc.

 

Is there anythunbg the player can do (such as runAAS?) or will I have to release a updated version..?

 

Are these AI using interleaved thinking and is this happening while the player is out of range?

[Bikerdude]

I have set max and min think distance if thats what u mean? and said are are dormant untill the player enters the leaf, at which point i find not moving from one location (indicating corrupt aas)

[grayman]

I have set max and min think distance if thats what u mean? and said are are dormant untill the player enters the leaf, at which point i find not moving from one location (indicating corrupt aas)

 

Yes, the think distance stuff. If they're dormant, then they aren't getting themselves into trouble, so a corrupt AAS could still be the problem.

 

I don't know anything about the AAS or how it might become corrupt.

 

Does rebuilding the AAS fix the problem?

[Fidcal]

Is there an actual AAS warning shown at game start?

 

Something else just occurred to me. Years ago while developing Thief's Den 1 at one stage I started getting AI going in circles etc. I found it was caused by my using I think it was shadow opt or noshadow opt or somesuch argument along with dmap. When I stopped using that then it was OK. I can't explain it except for me that fixed it and I never used that since.

[Tels]

question:

 

what causes aas to become corrupted after it was tested to be fine..? I ask because the Ai in my cathedral map are getting stuck and sitting down in the wrong places despite the fact I dmapped a fresh etc.

 

If they are sitting down at the wrong place, this can also happen due to a bug in v1.02, where if you disturbed an AI, it would then sit down wherever it is instead of wandering back to it's sitting place. I guess if you have interleaved thinking, it can also be that the AI is wandering to their sitting place, but overshooting/undershooting it, and then sit down at empty air (possible in combination with the bug mentioned above).

[Bikerdude]

caused by my using I think it was shadow opt or noshadow opt or somesuch argument along with dmap.

Ah, that is what I have been doing.... ok I'm gonna have to upload a fixed version then.

[Bikerdude]

question:

 

Is anyone else having the situation where you press 'ctrl-Z' to undo some thing, yet nothing happens, and if you keep pressing ctrl-z DR then crashes..?

[Fidcal]

I think I've seen this where I've changed a classname then tried to undo it but I'm a bit hazy about it now.

[Bikerdude]

As you lot know I'm working on Melan's RTTCand today I had a epiphany while sat on the loo..

 

- after making a backup copy of the map I filtered everything I wanted to keep (WS, Lights, Decals, etc) and then exported and removed all the fancy brush/patch func_staticsetc. And sure enough the FPS is very very good, never drops below 50- anywhere in that part of the map..

 

So my questions are:

 

1. In regards to the FS (model/patch/brush) objects, what is causing the big drop in fps (upto 20)
2. would replacing all the hi-vert models (wooden/stone support models) with my own lo-vert brush/patch_FS help to improve FPS..

Nb. all FS are set to noclipmodel and/or noshadow where applicable.

 

[Tels]

As you lot know I'm working on Melan's RTTCand today I had a epiphany while sat on the loo..

 

- after making a backup copy of the map I filtered everything I wanted to keep (WS, Lights, Decals, etc) and then exported and removed all the fancy brush/patch func_staticsetc. And sure enough the FPS is very very good, never drops below 50- anywhere in that part of the map..

 

So my questions are:

 

1. In regards to the FS (model/patch/brush) objects, what is causing the big drop in fps (upto 20)
2. would replacing all the hi-vert models (wooden/stone support models) with my own lo-vert brush/patch_FS help to improve FPS..

Nb. all FS are set to noclipmodel and/or noshadow where applicable.

 

 

Typical, it would be drawcalls (plus the actual work of actually drawing stuff and casting shadows if any).

 

Basically it goes like this:

 

The engine has to draw Y triangles, and the sum comes from:

 

* each entity has Y materials, and for each material and for each light hitting that entity, there is one drawcall drawing Z tris (exactly how many the material has).

 

So if you want to save work, you can either:

 

* cut down on the number of triangles (simply removing entities will achive this, hence the importance of visportals), likewise, using lower-details entities. However, that doesn't help much if you actually need the detail, or you need to keep the entity (it doesn't help just removing doorframes when these are nec.).

 

* cut down on the number of drawcalls (e.g. render the same amount of triangles with less drawcalls). Typically, this can only be done by combining entities into one entity (since it is one drawcall *per* entity *per* light). If your entities are made from brushwork, you can simply revert them to worldspawn, then select both groups and convert them to one entity. This doesn't help if: entities made from models (trees) as there is in v1.02 no way to achive this unless you make a custom model in a modeling program, or entities that would cross visportals (because then they don't get culled if the player leaves that area).

 

* cut down on materials per entity (like if you have an orchid with leaves and blossom, make a new material where blossom and leaves are on the same texture, then retexture the model. You have the same looking model, but 1 instead of 2 drawcalls per light.

 

* cut down on lights or cut down on how many entities a light hits.

 

* Sep big wall sections with a bit of trim so that not one big triangle is hit by 3 lights, but 3 small triangles are hit by one light each. Big wall sections that are not sep. by an entity and are hit by 3 lights (even if the lights hit only slightly the far end) will f.i. rendered with 3 drawcalls 3 times completely.

 

* cut down on worldspawn details (which divide the triangles unnec.) and convert them to func_static entities. A shelf for instance can divide a wall and floor into a lot of unnec. worldspawn triangles. This means more triangles (see above) to be rendered for the same amount of pixels, also means more complicated AAS compilation and more AAS memory used.

 

One of these days I want to make a wiki article with images...

 

Personal note: Don't overdo the optimization. We actually want some details to see in the maps, a bare-bones-only-walls mission is boring

[Bikerdude]

hmm, that was what i was afraid of - no simple answer.

 

removing detail is not an option, but what I can do is remove details that the player aint gonna see - eg less tris in curved surfaces (windows frames, arches, buttresses - Melan is a demon for adding too much of this detail is a large outside area )

[Tels]

hmm, that was what i was afraid of - no simple answer.

 

removing detail is not an option, but what I can do is remove details that the player aint gonna see - eg less tris in curved surfaces (windows frames, arches, buttresses - Melan is a demon for adding too much of this detail is a large outside area )

 

If you want, I can also have a look. Send me the mission and I can make a run with r_showTris and tell you a few spots. (Or post r_showTris screenshots here).

 

As for window arches etc, you an replace their shadows with grime decals. Dirt often accumulates around nooks and edges, anyway, and it also make it look like the arch casts a shadow on the wall from the light pouring out of the window. If the player cant get up there, anyway, missing shadow from player lantern won't be an issue.

 

Also use r_showPrimities to see how many drawcalls you have. If > 1000, thats an alarm sign.

[Bikerdude]

Also use r_showPrimities to see how many drawcalls you have. If > 1000, thats an alarm sign.

 

Ok I think I have a prob then, see the following screenshot.....and 70% of the map is between 1000-2000. But unfortunately I can only do bits here there without compromising the core look of the map.

Edited November 19, 2010 by Bikerdude

[Melan]

If we can get a new visportal near that location (a possibility being investigated), that's going to be a major coup. There is still a threshold where it is better to sacrifice suitability for weaker configs than detailwork, though.

[Tels]

Ok I think I have a prob then, see the following screenshot.....and 70% of the map is between 1000-2000. But unfortunately I can only do bits here there without compromising the core look of the map.

 

Can you send me a r_showtris = 1 screenshot of that scene? Also, have you attempted to combine multiple func_statics into one?