Johannes' box

[Johannes Burock]

after some more testing with the stones i use them also for walls...

 

 

1. you know fps of pic + 20 = gamefps

2. yes i know, both walls are the same stones...but the impresion is there

3. and yes i know most of you liked the textured ground and so more but: I LOVE THIS STONES

 

[edit]

 

and another one

 

 

The additional lamp in the pic is clearly pushing down the perf....

The torch isnt in there only the light

 

but that it is (in my oppinion)

Edited January 29, 2011 by Johannes Burock

[Rek]

These shots are stunning, especially the second one . But I think that details like that are just too much for old doom3 engine.

[Bikerdude]

its all the custom patchwork, how much of it have you converted to FS..?

[Johannes Burock]

its all the custom patchwork, how much of it have you converted to FS..?

 

 

all single stones from 1. the ground 2. all walls 3. the supporting beams 4. all pillars 5. the vault

 

and that it is + many bottles, the rags...

 

all stones, pillars, vault etc are patches or non touching brushes so i can create one big FS, am i right?

[Johannes Burock]

These shots are stunning, especially the second one . But I think that details like that are just too much for old doom3 engine.

 

 

I also think so...but i already have changed some things ( not detail but better way of rendering / fighting every useless tris i can find^^ )

 

I NEED A NEW ENGINE xD

Edited January 29, 2011 by Johannes Burock

[Bikerdude]

all single stones from 1. the ground 2. all walls 3. the supporting beams 4. all pillars 5. the vault, all stones, pillars, vault etc are patches or non touching brushes so i can create one big FS, am i right?

 

You can but that would be messy way to do it, becuase if you need to go back and edit/change anything afterwards. You are better off doing each pillar as an FS, then each wall side and then the floor and then then each quadrant of the ceiling between the pillars. If you need hand with how to optimise parts of the room etc I can help you with that. Just drop me a pm etc.

Edited January 29, 2011 by Bikerdude

[Aprilsister]

and yes i know most of you liked the textured ground and so more but: I LOVE THIS STONES

 

I only liked the original because I saw it first (mostly, truth is I do actually prefer it, but I think they both look very good).

 

The point I was hoping to make -- and many have echoed at least the first part -- is that you have obviously got the knack for creating a great looking mission, so please don't get caught up in the black hole of endlessly fidgering and fuggering around with minutiae and such.

 

It's with the VPing and the AI that you might have some experimenting to do... and then (onward and upward!)... tying it all up (story, gameplay, the mission).

 

The mission!

[Fidcal]

I really think the performance might be OK in small areas using the recommendations posted here. Probably be a problem doing all the buildings and streets in a city map though.

[Tels]

These shots are stunning, especially the second one . But I think that details like that are just too much for old doom3 engine.

 

Not if I am done with what I do We should not let "might be bad performance" sayers get in the way of the creative works of Johannes

 

Btw, Johannes, if you convert all stones on one wall into one func-static and then make a screenshot of them, and then use that screenshot as the underlying texture, then it would be possible to cull the func-static stones if the player is far away. However, this will only work if yu have f.i. a long cellar hallway.

 

If the stones are around a corner, a visportal would already cull them.

 

Btw, do you have added visportals yet? If not, you really should, because the longer you wait the harder it will get.

[Johannes Burock]

Today i've tested a perf.testmap on another pc.

 

nearly 2600 (!) stones in 9 seperate FS....in one big room

14 lights...with 4 shining on 4 FS and the other 10 on 2 FS

 

and it run with 60+ fps and 40 fps when walking (collision)

 

system: intel quad 4x3.6 GHZ, 8 GB RAM, Radeon 4870x2 (the second one isnt used by doom wright?)

 

i think in times of i7 (esp of the new sandy bridges) this arent the best systemparameters and so the performance for this hightris and light map is really ok...

 

[Shadowhide]

system: intel quad 4x3.6 GHZ, 8 GB RAM, Radeon 4870x2 (the second one isnt used by doom wright?)

 

 

i think in times of i7 (esp of the new sandy bridges) this arent the best systemparameters and so the performance for this hightris and light map is really ok...

 

:o

[7upMan]

Johannes, I hope you are aware that many TDM players have waaay worse rigs than yours. In fact, try testing your map on a 2 GHz machine with a HD3870/Geforce 8800 to achieve a better view of what the majority of the players are to expect fps-wise.

[Baddcog]

Well, things to consider (not that I'm trying to be a naysayer... but we've done a lot of poly/light tests before too).

Thing is that the game can handle TONS of polys, I think we've had tests in the millions (Tels?), but it's lights per poly/shader that matter. Making groups of F_C's helps as it reduced drawcalls, but doesn't reduce tris/light.

 

It's also how many shadow tris are cast...

 

Your system is pretty high spec for a lot of potential TDM players. I've got a faster card (5850 1 gig), but only one. I have half the ram and only a quad 2.4 (2.7 oc). And I'm near the top end for a lot of players. Not all of course but many thief players are playing a 10 year old game and don't upgrade machines often, most would not be considered hard core gamers, just hard core thief fans.

 

You should build however you want, but get too complex and it might make your missions unplayable by a lot of players.

 

And like I said before, throw a couple ai in there and your fps could possibly be cut in half.

----------------

 

One thing you can also do is probably turn off shadow casting on the stones. It probably wouldn't change much visually since they are low profile and lights will shine down on them more than anything.

 

You could apply decal grime in spots where stones are missing to fake shadows too.

[Johannes Burock]

Johannes, I hope you are aware that many TDM players have waaay worse rigs than yours. In fact, try testing your map on a 2 GHz machine with a HD3870/Geforce 8800 to achieve a better view of what the majority of the players are to expect fps-wise.

 

 

ahhh, yes...on my actuall sys darkmod is also running not as fast as there, but if i deactivat antia on my sys i can play my own level which counts 20/30 fps on the images on full 60 fps without probs...(2x2.4 GHz , 4GB, GeForce 9650 GT 1GB VRAM)....

And new CPUs are better than the old ones even if they have the same number of GHz...

And the testmap is much bigger and more complex then a map with VP's and so...

 

And yes the friend with this sys is clearly a NERD...no gaming but highend sys...and this year he want to buy a new one for ~5000 (!) €...

Edited February 1, 2011 by Johannes Burock

[nbohr1more]

Yeah, those polys might not be too bad if the tiles are set to noshadows. If so, you are probably looking at more of a GPU limited scenario for lower-end players in that scene. The crevices between the tiles are fairly well occluded by angle and distance so Hierarchical-Z will likely cull a lot of those triangles...

 

Up-close, in your latest shot the need to fake a little AO is more apparent verses the lighting in your level but a couple of grimes would be nice in either case.

 

I'm just surprised to see that kind of detail when normally we only see something like that with Parallax mapping, POM, or Tessellation demos. It just shows that we are getting to the point where hardware needs less tricks to pull-off the appearance of decent polygonal density.

[Johannes Burock]

another screener:

 

a small well on the wall...the water jet isnt really visible on the shots. And the sound of the dabbling water...a vid would be better

 

 

[Sotha]

another screener:

 

a small well on the wall...the water jet isnt really visible on the shots. And the sound of the dabbling water...a vid would be better

 

 

 

Beautiful. Are you using stock TDM assets or do you have your own modeling and texturing departments? The well looks very original and nice.

 

If that well is not a model, maybe it should be prefab-i-cated and added into TDM assets?

[Springheel]

Wow. Just wow.

 

If that well is not a model, maybe it should be prefab-i-cated and added into TDM assets?

 

Yes please!

[Tels]

Johannes, these look fantastic as ever

 

The only thing I'd wish for is that we have an "ivy-stem" model that you could place under the ivy patches. Right now they sort of float on the wall.

 

A couple of things I found for inspiration:

 

http://www.autographfoliages.com/product_pages/ne_greenery.html

http://affiliate.bigstockphoto.com/image-1343351/stock-photo-marble-wall-with-ivy

http://landscapeofmeaning.blogspot.com/2010/05/oxford-study-finds-that-ivy-can-protect.html

[Bikerdude]

lol, its like every other day there is something cool to look at in Johannes thread..

 

[Fidcal]

Definitely put some grunge under that font. If it's not moving then grime it is my motto. Looking excellent anyway.

 

Roots and branches and tendrils are not too difficult using cylinder patches and the wiki patches article how to bend and shape them.

[Baddcog]

That well is patches with my door knocker back plate very creative!

 

It should be saved as a prefab or .ase (at least the base patches), then people could decorate it or not.

[Johannes Burock]

Johannes, these look fantastic as ever

 

The only thing I'd wish for is that we have an "ivy-stem" model that you could place under the ivy patches. Right now they sort of float on the wall.

 

A couple of things I found for inspiration:

 

http://www.autograph...e_greenery.html

http://affiliate.big...e-wall-with-ivy

http://landscapeofme...an-protect.html

 

here we go:

 

 

i think this way is ok.

 

how can i create this to a prefabe?

[Baddcog]

There's an export to .ase somewhere in the menus (that creates a model out of it, which will reduce draw calls, but until it gets added to source files would need included in the mission zip). Skins can be added too. Is easiest for most mappers to use. (stuck with only rekinning whatever parts have different textures right now)

 

There's also a prefab thing in the menus (sorry, been a while). Prefab would be nice because anyone can reskin any parts, resize, reshape easily (and you can include the model as a part of it). But would need Tels Seed system to cut down drawcalls.

 

The best option imo is to export both. As is it's a great model, but the prefab allows customizing/making more variety of models.

 

I think we need a water tex that is 'noisy'. ie: bubbly, frothy. The spout coming from his mouth is so clear it's almost not visible (if it weren't for the distortion it might not be).

[Springheel]

There's also a prefab thing in the menus (sorry, been a while). Prefab would be nice because anyone can reskin any parts, resize, reshape easily (and you can include the model as a part of it). But would need Tels Seed system to cut down drawcalls.

 

Why would the fountain need the seed system?