R_speeds

Zoc

<div class="IPBDescription">how to lower them down?</div> I'm using some hint brushes, but, in the hive area, they keep around 2400...

What do I need to do to lower then down...
Don't have many things in the hive area...

You can see the hive area checking the map on my signature. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->

Thaldarin

Less brushes / Detail, less open space, make your textures bigger (as in x:2.00 y:2.00 instead of 1.00)

Reese

Also i'd suggest leaving out hint brushes until you have a lot of the basics of mapping down. After a while you can look at an area and get a feel for what will and will not be visible to the game, and what you actually can and cannot see. That's when you need to start working with hint brushes. As it is they might be responsible for some of your r_speed problems, as they just add to it when used incorrectly.

Be sure that you're looking at the correct column too. wpoly is what most everyone lists as r_speeds. epoly generally does get up high in hive rooms.....because you have a hive there to use all those entity polygons. So, look at the second column of numbers, not the third, to see what your r_speeds are coming out as.

Soylent_green

2400... w_polys? That's like, insane <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->, can you post a screenie with gl_wireframe 2 enabled?(gl_wireframe 2 lets you see what the engine thinks you can see overlayed in wireframe mode ontop of the normal image, it's therefor very usefull in finding problems with high r_speeds)

That room looks like it would be 300-500 w_polys something to me.

esuna

Also, i have to ask, is this compiled using the fast (VIS) and normal (RAD)?

Unless you do a "full compile" you will experience FAR higher r_speeds. If you've not done a proper compile, i recommend that you try that first before attempting any other solutions.

Andos

In some wierd way i can't put in gl_wireframe 1. It says that it can't do that in "multiplayer mode". I have tried both with sv_cheats 1 and 0 (on and off) <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
How can i turn it on? Or how do i turn multiplayer mode off <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->

tseepra

Open ns then click the console and the type "map (map name here)" and that will launch your map in sigle player mode. Also remember not to have cheating death on when testing in gl_wireframe 1.

Soylent_green

gl_wireframe 0 - turn of wireframe
gl_wireframe 1 - turn on wireframe mode for all visible objects
gl_wireframe 2 - turn on wireframe mode for all objects the engine thinks is visible(IE everything it draws visible or not)

1 - is usefull for finding problems with faces being split into many pieces(one of the worst things you can do is to stick a many sided pipe directly into a floor for example, leaving a 1 unit gap or turning it into a func_wall will solve this problem)

2 - is usefull for seeing if the map gets properly VISed and if your hintbrushes and other VIS blocking objects are working like you thought they would. You may use this for finding problem areas with high r_speeds as well as 1, but this may become annoyingly cluttered.

<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Open ns then click the console and the type "map (map name here)" and that will launch your map in sigle player mode. Also remember not to have cheating death on when testing in gl_wireframe 1. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I can't remember how many times I've accidentally left C-D on and needed to check something in gl_wireframe <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->

Soylent_green

<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Unless you do a "full compile" you will experience FAR higher r_speeds. If you've not done a proper compile, i recommend that you try that first before attempting any other solutions. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->

-full incorporates more visibillity data into the BSP and does therefor reduce your r_speeds a little in most cases, but even 25% would surprise me as I have never seen anything near that good an improvement.

Running with -fast does little to speed up the compile process as well for that matter(so you may as well run with -full even if just testing unless your on a pentium 2 or something) since VIS is usually very fast on all but huge/detailed maps(compile speed problems can be minimized by working with pieces of the map in individual .rfm files and then puting them togheter when they are mostly done, as well as using the cordon tool in HL to compile only a small section of the map at a time).


RAD has nothing at all to do with your r_speeds though, not running RAD will make performance VERY choppy indeed, your r_speeds remain the same though.

Zoc

I don't mean w-poly <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
was e-poly that is around 2400 <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->

I'll post a screenshot soon here <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
thank for the info on that

btw, sorry for the time to reply. I got hard times on the university... I hate exams... hehe <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->

Zoc

Here is the file <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->

Reese

your r_speeds are fine. wpoly is usually what people are worried about, as it creates a lot more stress on the engine. the epoly that you see there is just the hive, and isn't really a problem. Keep up the good work.

Soylent_green

If you look near that box you will see the floor is all split up into many pieces, that could probably be done better but since your r_speeds are fine you probably shouldn't bother unless you are going to add lots more detail to the hive.

You probably should know that the engine needs it's polygons to be convex(a convex polygon is such that a straight line drawn through the polygon(in the same plane as the polygon) will allways intersect 2 sides, the engine needs this to speed up calculations). If you stick a pipe on a square floor it will be split up into as many pieces as it takes for it to be convex, and that can be alot of pieces, if you leave the pipe 1 unit above the floor or make it into a func_wall, func_illusionary or func_seethrough or any other entity that is suitable it will not split the floor up.

w_polys can be no larger than 240x240 if the texture scale is 1 in both direction, if you scale the texture the maximum size limit of a w_poly scales too. IE if you scale the ceiling of a large room it will be split up into larger pieces and not use as many w_polys. If you make an object that is very small and scale down the texture a bit it will not use more w_polys and it will look more detailed. Avoid insane texture scales though, the engine dislikes too large(something like >10) and too small texture scales(something like <.1).

edit: this might be useful <a href='http://www.natural-selection.org/Mapping_Guidelines.html#Appendix_A__Baseline_E-Polys' target='_blank'>mapping guide lines, apendix a - baseline e-polys</a>

Zoc

I don't understood very well the pipe example that you described, and, I make a room with pipes yesterday, look if there is something wrong to me, please ? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->

btw, the screenshot is really awful.. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
I have a maximum upload of 122k in ns.org <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->

Zoc

Forgot to attach... lol

Soylent_green

Allright here's 2 pictures of a room with pipes. On one side of the room the pipes touch the wall, on the other they stop just on unit before touching the wall.

First image, <a href='http://hem.bredband.net/congal/temp/HalfLife04.jpg' target='_blank'>pipes that end before touching the wall</a>

second image, <a href='http://hem.bredband.net/congal/temp/HalfLife03.jpg' target='_blank'>pipes that touch the wall</a>

In the first image the pipes don't touch the wall so the compiler can split the wall into rectangles of no more than 240x240 units(texture scale 1 was used in both directions).

In the second image the pipe is touching the wall. This is much trickier for the compiler to handle. It removes the piece of wall that is in touch with the end of the pipes(does not need to be drawn) so it ends up with a square with 4 octagonal holes in it and then tries to split this odd thing into convex polygons no more than 240x240 units in size. It does not split it in the most clever fasion, so it gets the job done but badly. On a really large wall just a few pipes touching it can add alot of w_polys.

Either don't let the pipes touch the wall(just leave a 1 unit gap between the wall and the pipe, no one will know <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->) or make the pipes into entities(such as func_walls), these do not split walls up and it does not hurt to have them intersecting world geometry.

If convex polygon is confusing then you might want to check:<a href='http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ConvexPolygon.html' target='_blank'>convex polygon, definition</a>.

What it says is that if you draw all the linesegments connecting any set of 2 corners in a polygon and then find that the outermost line segments coincide with the sides of the polygon itself then the polygon is called convex, otherwise it is concave.