High tris... :(

(MadJack) #1

I’ve got this little place in the coner of the map that gives me close to 30K tris… I don’t have much problems with it but it’s not everyone that’ll be able to cope with that kind of demand…

I’ve decidedly brought down the tris count throughout the map but there are a couple of places, mainly around the Axis spawn, that get over 20K. There are some trees but not that many and from what’ve seen anyway, trees don’t seem to bring tris that high.

Anyway, here’s a screenie of what it looks like… I don’t know if it’ll show… I think I can’t link files but if it doesn’t work try putting the URL on the address bar… Might work. If not, I’ll find something else.

Removed the image 'cause it wasn’t working! :angry:

I’ve caulked in the middle of hills you can see behind the house, in all the different “steps” of the terrain and where it was possible to bring those tris lower.

I think I’ve succeeded pretty okay since most tris count is around 10-15K on the terrain and 3-9K below ground.

The only thing I haven’t done is hinting. I’d like to refrain from doing that if possible. Hinting can be a biatch. :smiley:

Thanks for any ideas! :slight_smile:

(FireFly) #2

From the screenshot it’s hard to see what is causing the high r_speeds.
Maybe you can post another screeny from the same spot with r_showtris 2 so it shows what the engine is actually drawing.

(MadJack) #3

Here’s the /r_showtris 2 … Note that I’ve inverted the colors because it was really too white to see much…

Also, I locked the pvs and went around… Looks like the whole terrain is being drawn at that distance except for tiny places.

Removed the image 'cause it wasn’t working :angry:

I guess I’ll have to hint/antiportal/whatever :frowning: sigh

(DAbell) #4

Not sure what sort of compile your doing before running this map but its only when you do a full -vis compile that you will get the culling of tris that can’t be seen.

The only bit of info i know on this subject is that structural brushes block vis and create portals (lots of portals means massive vis compile time, structural brushes can always be seen.)

Detail brushes can be blocked from view by structural brushes, but detail brushes will not block vis. Basically all i can say is first check that you have some large objects that are structural to block visiblity across the map. Also that you don’t have items that don’t need to block visiblility as detail brushes, this helped me bring the portals in my map down from 37000 to 10000 which makes the compile alot faster.

The portal thing is a bit more difficult to describe but you can load the portal viewer in radiant to show what portals are being created in your map, the way i gather this to work is that anything that is completely inside another portal that in no way can be seen from anywhere inside the portal your in currently in will not be drawn. Try searching for better explanations thats just my simplistic view which has helped me but might not be clear to anyone else.

D

(MadJack) #5

DAbell, thanks for your input.

I have done a complete vis. No fast vis. No vis gives 30 K and more on most of the exterior so… hehe I should add that vis takes about 5-10 mins at most. Light… that’s another story :smiley: Culling is done, just not where I’d like it to be. That’s why I’ll probably have to use some hints/antiportal.

You are right about vis blocking but the way the map is set is most of the structural stuff is underground. There are NO buildings up top except for small things. The biggest obstacles are the mountain on which sits 5 objectives. I made hills between the axis spawn and the mountain but can’t just put them in a hole :smiley:

Anyway, I’ve already cut tris about half and I don’t think it’ll be a problem since most players that will get at those places are soldiers with mortars… Not a real biggie for FPS… I would need a huge building to break vis enough to lower tris and I’m not willing to do that.

Since I’m basing that map on a real battle that happened, though I’m far from being accurate, I’d prefer if I’d keep, at least, the exterior as close to the real thing as possible…

There, I said too much! :stuck_out_tongue:

(ratty redemption) #6

although Im not an expect on vis, Im not sure DAbell is correct when he says

structural brushes can always be seen

I think they apply to the same rule that they only get drawn in game if they are within the pvs, which is the potential visible set, ie the portals that the engine thinks the player should be able to see.

@MadJack, I think you can build simple caulk brushes inside your hills to help block vis, this will also speed up compiles times, well it did for one of my terrain maps, but admittedly I haven`t used this technique in my latest map, as all my hills are on the border of my map, so there is nothing really to draw behind them.

(MadJack) #7

I think that’s what he meant. That’s how I took it anyway.

I have to add to what he said that though Structural Brushes do block vis and create a lot of portals, most of the times that’s why you detail 90% of the map. Structural brushes should only be used for walls, floor and ceiling and anything that you can use to block visibility from one area to the other.

Let’s not forget that if there are no portals in a big area (like terrain map) the engine will make one every 1024 units unless antiportal or some other technique is used.

Oh and I forgot… Portals describe before are only made on XY axis! Z axis is NOT used to make automatic 1024 units portals! And unless I’m mistaken, that’s always the case when the engine is making portals.

(ratty redemption) #8

interesting and I didn`t know that about the axis.

for my test compiles, I`ve been using in worldspawn _blocksize with a very high value, equal to the longest dimension of my map, so would that be overriding the default portals being made every 1024 units? …I am pretty new to vis, hinting etc.

(MadJack) #9

I read quiet rapidly about that yesterday but I’m not at that point yet… IIRC, you can’t stop it from doing it… The only thing you can do is force it to split somewhere on the Z axis by putting a horizontal hint of 1 unit… I’m not too sure if that’s what it was. For all I can remember it might have been the contrary :wink:

I’m not new to hinting but it’s something I’ve never looked forward to and quiet frankly, avoid as much as possible.

It seems though that I won’t have much choice. Sooner or later, later preferably, I’ll get into that.

Just don’t take any info about hinting/antiportal from me very seriously :wink: for now :wink: lol

(Chruker) #10

You can disable the _blocksize divisions by setting it to 0

(MadJack) #11

My _blocksize is at 2048 so what would making it 0 imply? I’m not too sure how q3map2’s behavior would be on that. Can you tell me?

(ratty redemption) #12

@MadJack, understood and until someone corrects us, I dont see any harm in us theorizing, since were warning others we maybe wrong.

@Chruker, I think I tried that once and in rtcw it didnt seem to work... saying that, Ill try again, thanx :slight_smile:

(Chruker) #13

_blocksize 0 disables the portal creation.

As far as I have understood the feature its the compiler (ie. q3map2) that creates the portals, so I guess it shouldn’t be dependent on the game. However I don’t know when this one was added to the compiler.

(MadJack) #14

Chruker… hmmmm… then if I use _blocksize 0, then my guess would be that I should manually hint the whole map? Seems like overkill but I"ll try to check on shaderlab about that…

Thanks :slight_smile:

(Gringo Starr) #15

I wouldn’t use _blocksize 0. I tried it and it can cause a major performance hit in certain maps. What breaks it is that all the tris in the leaf you’re standing in are drawn, whether you’re looking at them or not. So, it’s always drawing things behind your head. I guess this reduces the amount of work of the CPU and memory must do when you’re constantly whipping your head around. So, without any blocks, it can draw almost the entire map whether you’re facing it or not. It’s a long story, but hopefully you get the drift.