Information on battery and other beach maps


(Danyboy) #1

As per Socks request this is now a public thread from a PM:

Just wanted to know the x and y lengths for battery map - and also

in battery the sea clip brush stops u from going too far out to sea - but how far out does the sea strech out from this clip brush

its clever cause the worlspawn fog is fairly light but fog is thicker past the clip - is this just a fog brush you’ve added there


(sock) #2

The battery map is huge mainly because of the ocean at the front of the map. Top left: -9720,9096 Bot Right: 16896, -3728. The map goes beyond the clip brush by 7500 map units. The fog is a worldspawn key, no fog brushes were harmed in the making of battery! :wink:

Sock
Feel the :moo:


(Danyboy) #3

hmm i made rough brush of that side and its verly rectangular - this is cause of the sea yeah?

does that mean the sea/water brush extends that far or have u cut it to about 1000?


(Thej) #4

Hi there, i have a few questions about how u made the terrain so big, but still kept the fps running smooth.

Has it something to do with the fact that when i walk around i see some kind of halo around me(like a foghull)
Did u use a special shader or command?
And is this going to be in the documentation, how u did it, or not?

grts Thej


(Drakir) #5

I belive they used the common way by using fogclip in the worldspawn entity.

If u are using fog in your map you cannot see beyond a certain distance due to the fog. All things beyond that limit can be excluded in the rendering by using fogclip and setting the distance of the clipping.


(Thej) #6

Well im using a fog shader myself, but i have to make the fogdistance not to big else my r_speeds go bananas :banana: And i have coloured fog, but in the battery map, u can see a very long distance, so im guessing they used some other trick.

Thx for the fast reply btw :clap:


(Danyboy) #7

well the fog clip distance is set to just further than the width of the map - cause standing at allied spawn the lighthoues begins to fade away - so the sea end of the map also uses this and so extends that far for that reason

plus the size of the map shouldn’t really increase FPS much because the massive length of the map really has no detail - just a sea floor and sea brush - so no probs really


(Thej) #8

Ok, but the greater distance u can see, the greater the distance of the culling, that way the engine has to draw all the triangles within that distance, and that means larger r_speeds, and thus lower fps. So when u look towards the nme base, so away from the ocean, it will still draw everything within the fogclip distance. Or am i wrong, asuming this?

Cause i have a large open terrain map, but i cant set my farplane distance to big, else it will draw to many triangles.


(Danyboy) #9

and what if the extended “sea” is not made of many triangles but 2 large ones creating a rectangle?

EDIT - ok read your post in more detail

the enemy base may have detail but surly you will only see the exterior walls - the interanl base which looks hefty in trinagle count is not visible from the exterior - so your really only drawing the terrain trinagles and the bunker exteriors


(Thej) #10

Hi, thx for ur replies :slight_smile:
I just devmapped battery, and it looks like there is a foghull surrounding the player, cause u cant see entire map, but u see a large box surrounding the player.

Im still hoping on a reply from the devteam btw :smiley:


(ydnar) #11

The fog used in ET levels is via the worlspawn “_fog” key, whre the value is the name of a fog shader. The “_farplanedist”/“fogclip” worldspawn key affect vis’ processing beyond the farplane, and internally the renderer treats the global fog like a normal fog brush, albeit with an optimized code path and farplane clipping.

Additionally, the farplane clipping in ET is a wee bit more efficient, as entities are culled out beyond it as well.

y


(Thej) #12

Thx, i knew there was something strange going on, cause in RTCW when u set the farplane dist a little bit to far the objects in the map seem to be jumping into view.
thx for the reply Ydnar.


(Danyboy) #13

Another Q about coastal maps

Which texture did u apply to the sea brush in battery?

Cause its lovely - there are ripples, rising and lowering of sea - looks quality

cheers Sock :slight_smile: