Lux's mapping thread

[Obsttorte]

Sotha mentioned that he had problems turning fog on and off, that's why he teleported it away if not needed. I never tested that.

 

With my approach I would just decrease the fog density, so it's "almost" out.

[Obsttorte]

Scriptobject posted in my mapping thread (see link below)

[Lux]

Got it! Thank you.

[Lux]

Do weather effects, "rain" in this case (from the tutorial) always render even when they're on the other side of a closed (red) visportal? That is the case on my test map. Can't get the rain not to render though when you are hide_distance 640 away it does stop rendering though that is a function of the rain and not the visportal cutting off its render.

 

I'm only using 1 patch for rain however if I had 2-3 stacked for downpour one would think that with a red visportal, this would not consume compute cycles.

 

I do understand that if its raining you'd "hear" the rain outside but sound travels through them regardless of closed or open, correct?

 

The reason I ask is because the tutorial specifically states:

 

"

Portalizing: Visportals

Portalizing defines which areas of a mission are to be rendered at any time so as to avoid unnecessary rendering. Without it a big mission would grind to a halt. Our little mission could manage but even here, if you put in torrential rain you will find it slowing down on many PCs. Portalizing won't help out with the rain but it will improve performance indoors; why waste processing time on the rain when you can't see it?

 

"

And yet, after explaining where the visportals are to be created, goes on to say:

 

"Save, dmap, map and try it out. If you have torrential rain then you should notice a big difference when you go inside and close the yard door."

 

 

When the "closed" door and subsequent red "closed" visportal have rain rendering on the opposite side, this is kind of confusing.

 

So I don't know if this is expected behavior or I made some mistake, but it seems like something is wrong.

 

Some clarification is welcome.

 

Yes, I have r_showportals 1 and r_showtris 2 enabled and the rain is clearly rendering while inside the house on the opposite side of a red portal.

 

EDIT:

 

Also, when I'm in the 2nd inner room with the door shut, the South half of the rain in the outer yard still renders; the half closest to me. The far North side does not render, however I'm still within the hide_distance parm of 640. I've also removed the parm from both of the rain patches with no effect.

 

When the inner door is opened, the rain is rendered on both the North and South of the yard even though another red visportal lies between us.

 

So through 2 red (closed) visportals the rain only renders on the South side (can't be seen through two brushes with no leaks) and through 1 red visportal the rain is rendered on both North and South of the yard.

 

Puzzling.

Edited May 5, 2013 by Lux

[nbohr1more]

Rain or particles in general do not seem to respect portals. I believe that several of Sotha's missions have hide distance set on rain to address this. Check out

"The Transaction".

[Obsttorte]

Maybe the rain patch is reaching into the parts of the map which are rendered. It will only stop rendering if the whole patch is within an area, that is not rendered due to closed visportals.

[Lux]

Ok, thanks very much, nbohr1more.

 

The Transaction, fun mission, gg Sotha! Yeah I just finished The Phrase Book last night and started on Fidcal's series, just started The Heart of Lone Salvation.

 

What sucks is I'm getting these story ideas and then I'll come across a mission that has done a variation on it. Hah... don't want to do what's already been done before story wise so the research continues.

[Sotha]

Yep, in Transaction, the trick was to switch rain patches off when the player is too far. Test and tune so that there was is always the patches raining where the player is plus the adjacent rain patches.

 

On inventing a plot, read this:

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/plots.htm

With a correct mixup of elements, you could reconstruct almost any plot seen in movies or books.

[Lux]

So I at least figured out something with the rain/rainsplash patches and visportals.

 

I was trying to recreate the patches by first removing the offending ones and then cloning the North yard patches and pulling them down in top view to resize but apparently resizing does not work with patches?? Is this accurate? I tried with QE button pressed, Alt, Ctrl, Shift, combos of ... nothing would resize the patches.

 

Then I figured out it was because the tutorial tells you to "Convert them to fun_static". I reverted the Originals and then I could resize them. Then I figured, lets see how the visportal treats them if they're all worldspawn class and not func_static.

 

What I found out and I'm sure you're all aware of is that if they're worldspawn, they come in to view just like all the other geometry. If you overlap the corners of two portals so you can see through both, its only showing rain in that tiny little corner, nothing else is rendered.

 

So... what I'm wondering is why should they be (if at all) converted to "func_static" when it appears much less is always rendered using entity class: worldspawn like all other brushes and it appears all visportal rules now apply to them so only what can be seen is rendered.

Edited May 5, 2013 by Lux

[nbohr1more]

Nice experiment.

 

I'd say that if you can get the particles to render from a world spawn patch then do it that way.

 

Converting to Func_Static is a mapper habit that sometimes gets out of hand. Func_statics can do many more

things than World Spawn because of Entity spawnargs so it's tempting to convert as much as possible to it.

 

Converting to Func_Static doesn't guarantee better performance in all scenarios. It's there to allow mappers more

control and it can allow mappers to optimize in creative ways but it can also lead to problem scenarios like poor

portalization and high light counts.

 

Use Func_Static only when needed...

[Lux]

Ah, I see... yes I'd read a number of other posts in threads talking about converting things to func_static for that reason, just want to make sure I'm not making an optimization mistake that I should heed.

 

I'm an efficiency freak so doing things efficiently, cleanly, and in the easiest manner possible (given design constraints) are things I try to optimize in my design style. Not just for my sake, but what's best for the user, the engine, map fluidity, construction, etc.

[Lux]

Yep, in Transaction, the trick was to switch rain patches off when the player is too far. Test and tune so that there was is always the patches raining where the player is plus the adjacent rain patches.

 

On inventing a plot, read this:

http://www222.pair.c...eroom/plots.htm

With a correct mixup of elements, you could reconstruct almost any plot seen in movies or books.

 

Thank you for the link and the tips!

[Bikerdude]

So when do we get some WIP shots of your work mista :-)

[Lux]

...where you get this guy??

[Lux]

I just figured out the skybox is shining down inside my bevel corner so I had to cap that off, and you want screen shots? Har! Not even through the tutorial and you want screenshots?!#^@&

 

You are very very funny!

[Lux]

So you ride the Isle of Man on a moto or do you pedal like a real man?

[Bikerdude]

...where you get this guy??

Who me..?

 

So you ride a moto or do you pedal like a real man?

I've been a what we call motorcyclists in the UK (a biker) for 24yrs and have owned or ridden a lot of bikes from a 50cc Vespa to a 1100cc Kawasaki, but I also cycle. Its been a while since I've done a 3 star(100 mile) run though.

 

Sorry to go off topic but on the subject of cyclists, I commute into London everyday and witness the give a crap attitude by the majority of them. I am of course referring to the jumping of traffic lights at road junctions, or turning into the path of traffic from side roads, or cycling directly across the path of other road users.

 

But in answer to your question, considering the risk to life and limb a real man rides a motorcycle because any Muppet can jump on a push bike

[Lux]

Haha! That was more a jab than anything else, just messing with you, dude. I dig motorcycles.

 

I only have a dirt bike right now cause I'm gettin old to the point where stuff has stopped healing the way it used to but I do cycle and enjoy that a lot and also hate other cyclists that don't obey the rules all should follow on the roads. I also don't live in a large metro area so not a lot of traffic to deal with out here. My normal route goes out through the country which is much nicer than intensely breathing exhaust for a couple hours.

 

I've never done a century ride but I think it would be fun at some point.

[Bikerdude]

I've never done a century ride but I think it would be fun at some point.

First time I did such a run I couldn't walk properly for the day or so...

[Lux]

Hahah, yeah it is masochistic to some extent. Most I've ridden is around 45 mi. and it does take it out of you. A nice 20-30mi ride a few times a week is enough that you can eat and drink anything you want so that's the main reason I do it besides enjoying the ride.

[Lux]

Curious about the texture browser.

 

I started a new project. Blank canvas. I have previously loaded in 2 other FMs that were complete. And the test map that I was working on.

 

Now my texture browser has a billion (not literally) textures in it and I'm on a blank "New" map.

 

If I click flush and reload shaders, that does nothing. If I click "Hide Unused" about half of them disappear however there are still some from all three maps in the Texture tab.

 

I have no geometry created so a blank canvas, no textures on anything and yet the texture browser is packed. Is there a way to flush this cache?

 

Reinstalling 1.7.3 and deleting the Darkradiant folder in %appdata% > roaming cleared it but I wouldn't think this is the method for clearing the texture cache.

 

I don't see any menu options to do this either.

 

EDIT: This may have to do with permission issues that I'll be working out later this evening so no need to reply just yet.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Lux

[Lux]

No, the permission issue has nothing to do with this....

 

So I create a new blank map, no brushes, etc. and the Texture browser still shows all textures used previously until DarkRadiant is restarted? I would think the "hide unused" since none are currently being used, or Flush and Reload would have some affect on this but they do not.

 

So closing DR and reopening is the only way to flush the texture cache?

[someTaff]

It does happen, true. Closing and reopening does help. I think its rather a feature, discovered many interesting materials that way

[Lux]

Not that its any big deal my WIP but I'd like some individual advice on how best to do something so as not to waste an enormous amount of time, etc. And I'd like it on an individual level from an individual. I don't want to post explanatory pictures of the entire overlay of my map and spoil it for anyone.

 

I'm putting patches down on the terrain. I do have a guard and he'll chase you everywhere on the map successfully on the brushwork so that is good, however I'm going to convert the top surface of existing brushwork to monster clip (the rest is caulk) and put patches down and I'm spending too much time thinking how best to do it and would like some experienced feedback.

 

The issue I'm having is in the ctrl-alt-T texture tool. In order to align everything so the seams blend I'm doing this:

 

 

Is anyone available to chat maybe on ventrilo (i have a host and can give you the info) or on skype or pm me on googletalk @bbopptech

 

Thanks in advance!

 

EDIT: What's happening is, even though the rectangular grey boxes are completely aligned in the texture tool, the textures on the surface of the patches aren't.

Edited June 15, 2013 by Lux

[Lux]

Another issue is, I've added 1 column and 1 row to the default 3x3 patch to make them 5x5. When I select multiple patch vertexes, the seams, to try and drag them down to match my terrain brush curve, nearly instantly and every time I try this I receive:

 

 

EDIT: Every time I have 3 patches selected it happens for me everytime. With 2 patches selected I only get crashes occasionally maniupulating the vertices.

EDIT2: Sometimes it crashes, sometime it doesn't. Not sure what's going on. I've had 10 patches selected all with vertices on and manipulating them with no issues and then other times it crashes.

Edited June 16, 2013 by Lux