Johannes' box

[Tels]

Why would the fountain need the seed system?

 

I think Baddcog meant if it includes the ivy But I don't see this is nec., it can just a prefab anway.

 

Johannes: the ivy rots look much better than without! For prefab, select everything you want to export, then go to "File" "Save selected as prefab".

 

Alternatively, use the "ASE exporter" under "scripts", but beware this can be a bit tricky to use. In this case it is best to make the fountain without water or ivy and export that as ASE model. But as Baddcog said, a prefab is more versatile.

[Baddcog]

I assume the fountain is around 6-10 patches, thus 6-10 draw calls. with the seed system it would be one.

 

My point is if he just converts to ase (even if only in his map) it would reduce the drawcalls. (without using seed)

[Tels]

I assume the fountain is around 6-10 patches, thus 6-10 draw calls. with the seed system it would be one.

 

My point is if he just converts to ase (even if only in his map) it would reduce the drawcalls. (without using seed)

 

Ah, ok, I didn't think that the fountoin would be patches. Good thinking here

[Johannes Burock]

so...most of you like the townpics more...and i would like to feed u a bit :

 

 

Edited February 5, 2011 by Johannes Burock

[Johannes Burock]

and another two:

 

 

[Aprilsister]

Yerk Illin' Mee

[Tels]

Gorgeus, but don't show too many - we wan't to play the mission and be surprised

[fllood]

No suggestion or advice. Just Simply WOU! again Johannes

I love the realistic medieval European city feel you have the skill to create with architecture and patches. These wonderful irregular stairs are a great example of this!

 

As the guys mentioned, I just really hope my old 2 GHZ CPU rig with a 8800 Card can handle your so much detailed work.

[Bikerdude]

those steps look the dog bollox!

[7upMan]

This is an Instant WIN of the Beauty Contest!

 

@BD: Are dog testicles a good or a bad thing?

 

 

[STiFU]

That city shot looks very organic. Great work! Bend streets like that are the way to go!

[Sotha]

Mighty impressive work (as always thus far.)

[Mortem Desino]

Can I give you an internet-hug? Seriously. These screenshots made me melt.

[Bikerdude]

so...most of you like the townpics more...and i would like to feed u a bit :

 

 

 

I only just spotted these, Dame Johannes - your putting the rest of us to shame...

Edited February 6, 2011 by Bikerdude

[Johannes Burock]

I only just spotted these, Dame Johannes - your putting the rest of us to shame...

 

 

I think all, esp. you havnt got a reasen for this...but thanks

[Bikerdude]

your new screens look a lot like the DX11 Heaven benchmark very very pretty!

[Johannes Burock]

Gorgeus, but don't show too many - we wan't to play the mission and be surprised

 

 

I know...but when i have a creative hour i build and build and after this i like my work and i have to post ...

And becaue of that:

 

 

[Johannes Burock]

and another two:

 

 

[Tels]

I know...but when i have a creative hour i build and build and after this i like my work and i have to post ...

And becaue of that:

 

 

Love the tower shot, the silouette shows how walls *should always be*. It's a shame that we cannot do this with a shader/tesselation automatically and instead you have to create patch-stones

 

Btw, did you combine all these stones into one entity? I am thinking that you might make that entity dissappear in the distance, and if there under the stones is the same texture, it would be invisible for the player. So the stones are only rendered from less than X meters afar.

 

Would you like to post a screenshot with "r_showTris" set to 1 on the console?

[Springheel]

Man, every time you post I get more depressed working on my own level....

[Johannes Burock]

 

Love the tower shot, the silouette shows how walls *should always be*. It's a shame that we cannot do this with a shader/tesselation automatically and instead you have to create patch-stones

 

Btw, did you combine all these stones into one entity? I am thinking that you might make that entity dissappear in the distance, and if there under the stones is the same texture, it would be invisible for the player. So the stones are only rendered from less than X meters afar.

 

Would you like to post a screenshot with "r_showTris" set to 1 on the console?

 

That i also want to ask...tesselation...argh

 

here a showtris 1:

 

 

in this pic most are seperate patches and brushes...have to fix that...

[Baddcog]

But if you have the tex under the stones you also get overdraw which can be slow I believe...

 

Just wanted to point this out. If you make this grouping of brushes a separate func_static from the surrounding beams/wall then you'll save the splits that I sloppily highlighted in red.

 

Unfortunately splits will happen at patch edges, even if func_staticed as far as I can tell. I messed with that a bit and they always seemed to split the touching faces.

[Johannes Burock]

But if you have the tex under the stones you also get overdraw which can be slow I believe...

 

Just wanted to point this out. If you make this grouping of brushes a separate func_static from the surrounding beams/wall then you'll save the splits that I sloppily highlighted in red.

 

Unfortunately splits will happen at patch edges, even if func_staticed as far as I can tell. I messed with that a bit and they always seemed to split the touching faces.

 

 

I know. How i said, ihave to fix that in the future...but i first create the whole level of detail on a mappart and then fix such things when i have all patches and brushes in.

[Tels]

But if you have the tex under the stones you also get overdraw which can be slow I believe...

 

Overdraw = drawing things more than once. You are right, this can be wasteful, but only if you can solve the issue without complicating the scene.

 

In this case however, it is almost always better to draw thigns *twice*, but once with a very very simple worldspawn tris as background and the complicated details as func_static on top of it.

 

The reasons are:

 

* less worldspawn tris - much faster map compile, much faster collision detection, much faster base draw, this all directy affects framerate

* the func_static does not cut into the world spawn, so less triangles (for the almost the same amount of pixels), so faster

* you can cull the func_static from a distance

 

Just wanted to point this out. If you make this grouping of brushes a separate func_static from the surrounding beams/wall then you'll save the splits that I sloppily highlighted in red.

 

Unfortunately splits will happen at patch edges, even if func_staticed as far as I can tell. I messed with that a bit and they always seemed to split the touching faces.

 

What you wrote is right, I'd even go so far and make this ornament a model. Not only avoid you also the splits inside the model itself, but it seems generic enough that we'd want to re-use it.

 

Also from experiments with my mill-level, I would go even further:

 

Make the "housewall" one flat face with either just the "grey plaster", or even better, draw a new texture which combines the plaster and beam patterns. Set the material to stone.

 

Then put the beams as func_static (or multiple) over it.

 

Johannes did it already right in the small testmap he sent me, the wall is just a few brushes, and the beams are func_statics in front of it.

 

The reduction in world_spawn tris is worth the "draw some pixels twice", esp. because the wall pixels are behind the beams and thus might not even get rendered (depending in which order things are drawn).

 

@Johannes: automatic tesselation is not possible with the engine (and won't before it goes open-source).

 

Btw, in the background there is one arc that divides on of the walls of the big wall into a "fan" of triangles. If you make the arch a func_static you can avoid this Otherwise the scene looks fine to me, it doesn't have much more tris than a single AI, the tris are almost evenly distributed and "big enough" (e.g. no 1x1 pixel tri soup). It can be optimized a bit more, but I believe it won't make much difference in terms of rendering tris. The only concern would be if the player can view this from very afar, where the tris on the wall get very small. But this might not be a problem (e.g. if the player never can get that far away) and can also be solved with a "hide_distance" on the detail func_statics.

[Johannes Burock]

I have three questions to this pic:

 

 

1. U like the entrance to th building on the right?

2. And the two coloured window ?

3. The changed stonetex on the wall on the right side? In the older pics the brown stones were brick...