Inlining entities - is it working?

[motorsep]

There is a spawn arg on func_static entities called "inline". I recall it suppose to embed mesh into .proc file and free up that entity. This way you could embed all meshes into .proc and worry not about grass, rocks, etc. eating up entity count. Also it should improve loading times.

 

As I recall, Quake 4 had this working, but vanilla Doom 3 doesn't inline entities properly (collisions are missing and it still remains an entity afaik).

 

Was it fixed in TDM engine?

[New Horizon]

I never heard of this being fixed, but it sounds like a good idea.

[grayman]

I don't know anything about this, and the bugtracker doesn't show any appropriate issues for "inline".

[SteveL]

I'm pretty sure I've seen the relevant code in dmap but I've not tried it. It's only for func statics. Did you check whether it adds the model to the proc?

The world collision model generation isn't part of dmap, it's tacked on after. I can well believe it ignores the inline spawnarg, but I'd have thought it would cater for func statics anyway.

Map loading is different again. But if the first two are sorted, it would be easy to skip any inline FS during spawning. No idea how much of this is implemented.

[SteveL]

The world collision model generation isn't part of dmap, it's tacked on after. I can well believe it ignores the inline spawnarg, but I'd have thought it would cater for func statics anyway.

 

Think I was wrong on this.. FS CMs won't automatically be part of the world CM else you'd not be able to show/hide them.

I'll take a look after work and try to clear up whether inlining is "not implemented" or "broken".

[SteveL]

I take it we're talking about imported models? For FS made of worldspawn the effect would be the same as right-clicking in DR and choosing "revert to worldspawn" wouldn't it?

[motorsep]

Oh it's there - inlining does put mesh into .proc.

[nbohr1more]

I didn't know it had the ability to decrement the entity count, I thought it was so that models could seal the void.

[Tels]

As far as I know we never used inlining and so never fixed it. Not sure it is worth to fixi it (SEED partially replaces it).

[SteveL]

That's a point: for TDM at least, SEED probably does the job better does it? Because it doesn't just reduce the entity count, it combines the models in some way for drawing? Tels, please step in with proper explanation here

 

As motorsep has had to point out to me before though when I've recommended SEED, that system is only for TDM and he's using DR to work on something different. And if every model is unique, then you're back to wanting inlining in any case.

[motorsep]

Yeah, you'd be surprised to know how many people use DR for non-TDM projects (people use it for plain Doom 3 mapping for example).

 

I am not sure yet if we will use inlining at this point. Our LOD system prototype needs to reference entities, and inlining won't allow that. So until we make LOD system renderer integrated, we probably won't mess with inlining.

[Moonbo]

I've used the inline spawnarg in my maps. It allows you to scale func statics to larger than 100 percent without the odd bug where upscaled objects disappear when at the edges of the screen.

[SteveL]

Are they inaccessible func statics Moonbo? So collision doesn't matter?

 

I took a quick look in the code out of curiosity even though no-one actually wants it fixing. It's all as reported as far as I can see: dmap generates visible models in the proc file for inline models (and scales them too). Note: all models generated by dmap are for looks only: they're not solid. Then the world collision model is generated but it seems to handle only brushes and patches. Then on map start, the entity is simply hidden. It's neither prevented from spawning nor removed.

[motorsep]

.... for looks only: they're not solid.

 

How about having collision hull for inlined models? (textures/common/collision surface)

 

Then the world collision model is generated but it seems to handle only brushes and patches. Then on map start, the entity is simply hidden. It's neither prevented from spawning nor removed.

 

In other words it's still an entity? Is there a cvar to show entities count? Might just inline a model, and check entities count to see if it was left in the pool or removed. It would be cool to still have it as accessible entity, but so that it doesn't take up place in the total pull of entities.

[SteveL]

How about having collision hull for inlined models? (textures/common/collision surface)

The collision loader could handle that I'm sure, it just looks like it doesn't.

 

In other words it's still an entity? Is there a cvar to show entities count? Might just inline a model, and check entities count to see if it was left in the pool or removed. It would be cool to still have it as accessible entity, but so that it doesn't take up place in the total pull of entities.

Based on what I saw, the entity will still count. Not sure if there's a cvar to count entities, but there's one that shows their bounding boxes and names, including hidden entities: g_showentityinfo

[Moonbo]

Hey Steve,

 

They're definitely accessible (for instance, the chandeliers that the player can climb on in the church in Requiem are inlined), but because TDM doesn't scale up the collision model along with the visible model, I removed their collision and replaced it with nodraw brushes.