Prop considerations
How should one determine if they have too many props? It seems that props and the shadow system (in particular) can absolutely ruin the performance of otherwise fairly low poly maps, and figuring out the balance might be a little difficult. Additionally I'm concerned that over-relying on props will become a pain once dynamic infestation comes online. I've been messing around with the editor to put together a map concept and I'm trying to find the right balance between prop detail and modelling/manually texturing these set pieces with mesh. Any tips or thoughts on this?
Comments
The other part for the props, they now have a option to turn shadow casting on and off ass well as the same option for lights. It's really going to be up to the mapper to properly control what shadows are needed and whats not to improve performance. I selected all my props and lights and disabled the shadowing then went back through and turned it on at key points like maybe max of 3 shadow casting lights and props in view at any one time and got a major increase on performance when testing.
NOTE TO BREADMAN: Make shadow casting default off on props and lights, PLEASE i beg you!!!!!
Geometry instancing basically tells video cards to reuse data already contained in its memory; otherwise, the calls to a video card (and associated data) would have to be done for each prop. Further performance increases were made by handing chunks or batches of level geometry to the video card reduces the total number of times the Spark engine says "Hey! You video card! Do this!". The fewer number of calls to the card is how additional performance is gained.
My PC isn't powerful enough but if it could run editor and engine at the same time, can it show changes in real time?
I thought i seen a video about this some time ago but can't seem to find it, maybe something breadman was talking about.
After pondering my insanity of what i seen in the early days of development i couldn't bring myself to think my memory was that short so i went looking. I haven't found the video yet but the one you speak of is in fact the prop textured one on you tube but i know i seen cinematic being rendered in the engine in real time. what i did find was this article from about a year ago on the spark engine.
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1--> * Real-time, in-place editing with no waiting or compilation
* All tools let you work with final results in front of you. All tools hot-load into the game as well so if you save your work while the game is running, you can see your changes in-game.
* Lua script based for the same reasons - add new weapons or game elements while the game is running.
* Keep dependencies between systems to a minimum to allow them to be used independently and in novel ways
* Allow content creators to work the way they want to work - don't impose a specific pipeline or workflow<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
There is a video out there i just can't locate it at the moment.
EDIT:
<i>(Maybe fitted for ideas and suggestions forums but it does pertain to this response.)</i>
If this is not true for the current editor/engine then could we maybe see an option in the editor to play the placed cinematic so they are easier to position for maximum effect if it is at all possible to implement?