Le Mont St Michel - Beta

[Shaderman]

After downloading the map I really like it. You have some good ideas here and there…

Anyway, I thought about what could be done to reduce the hunk usage of your map and maybe it’s possible to lower it from now 65 MByte below the default of 56 MByte with some effort.

I did q3map2 -info for your map and goldrush. Maybe there’s some useful information:

goldrush.bsp
Abstracted BSP file components (*actual sizes may differ)
       70 models             2800
      177 shaders           12744
    16557 brushes          198684
   125632 brushsides      1507584 *
        0 fogs                  0
    44686 planes           714976
     1058 entdata          128907

     6278 nodes            226008
     6349 leafs            304752
    52494 leafsurfaces     209976
    66966 leafbrushes      267864

    26150 drawsurfaces    3870200 *
   160156 drawverts      12812480 *
    87423 drawindexes      349692

        0 lightmaps             0
    79488 lightgrid       2384640 *
          visibility       933968

          total          14757996
                            14412 KB
                               14 MB

lmsm_beta1.bsp
Abstracted BSP file components (*actual sizes may differ)
      125 models             5000
      310 shaders           22320
    11816 brushes          141792
    97599 brushsides      1171188 *
        1 fogs                 72
    67436 planes          1078976
      634 entdata           78247

     5484 nodes            197424
     5610 leafs            269280
    74053 leafsurfaces     296212
    56901 leafbrushes      227604

    33367 drawsurfaces    4938316 *
   278125 drawverts      22250000 *
   215952 drawindexes      863808

       36 lightmaps       1769472
  1000008 lightgrid      30000240 *
          visibility      1111464

          total          30550396
                            29834 KB
                               29 MB

I’m guessing now so don’t blame me if I’m wrong The drawverts value seems to be really bad with ~ 22 MByte. I’m not sure what exactly is counted in here, but if this value can be lowered by blocking vis, there are enough possibilities. Have a look at this for example:

It shouldn’t be too hard to block places like this and hopefully reduce the bsp size by lowering whatever gets into the leafs of the bsp Maybe someone else can exactly say what counts into this drawverts value and say how to reduce it (remember, I’m guessing).

Shaderman

[Loffy]

Incredible nice screens. Looks briliant.
//L.

[Northerner]

i hope you get this fixed cause i would really like to get this on my server
looks awesome!

[Shaderman]

These two topics may help you reducing the bsp size and lower the hunkmeg usage:

http://splashdamage.com/index.php?name=pnPHPbb2&file=viewtopic&t=6179

http://splashdamage.com/index.php?name=pnPHPbb2&file=viewtopic&t=11854

[Uchronic]

It’s really a nice and unique map.

The first part is maybe the most convincing as the church area is really mazy.

Unfortunately you have maybe used to much the “rotate” function of Radiant. As a result most of the brushes are twisted and are not in contact anymore with each others. It’s a pretty hard stuff to map in circle !

Anyway your map has a lot of potential.

[Massive]

Thanks all, for your comments.

I’m back a work now (real work, not sitting on the bench waiting for a project) so I’'ve only got weekends to work on this

Uchronic - I’m fixing the gaps as I find them (also I hadn’t really check the map on low graphics setting, so I expect a lot more gaps on those settings, I know how to fix this now & there should be an improvement for Beta2.

I’ve had some lag (they said lag but meant fps…) reports from some clans, so I had started concentrating on fps - I have 15%+ improvements in nearly all areas with fps on my current version.

Game play - I’ve removed access to a lot of town area between the origional allied spawn and the abbey - this was really dead area, where I expect little gameplay to havew happened. (let me know if I’m wrong). This should concentrate early game play between the allied spawn and the church, make it harder to get lost, easier to find the enemy etc. etc… This means the map has lost the rope access to the abbey. Now I could put the rope back in if people like the feature, it would just be at a different entry point along the abbey wall. Please let me know if people feel this should be in the game, by default I’m leaving it out at the moment.

BSP size - minor improvement so far

Abstracted BSP file components (*actual sizes may differ)
      125 models             5000
      320 shaders           23040
    10761 brushes          129132
    87764 brushsides      1053168 *
        0 fogs                  0
    61092 planes           977472
      639 entdata           78761

     6205 nodes            223380
     6331 leafs            303888
    69336 leafsurfaces     277344
    55547 leafbrushes      222188

    30192 drawsurfaces    4468416 *
   260075 drawverts      20806000 *
   215976 drawindexes      863904

       34 lightmaps       1671168
  1000008 lightgrid      30000240 *
          visibility      1313360

          total          29374284
                            28685 KB
                               28 MB

but thanks for you insights, I’ll follow those threads shaderman. Also your view of the abbey, I have allready changed - because of the complexity of the abbey church hull I had attempted to control vis with hinting, however now I have hullcaulked it instead I’m getting better fps & file size results

I’m also pursueing the Detoini, ASE methods for large portions of the map & am getting some size savings there.

Any other ideas for file size reduction very welcome

Cheers

Massive

[_PoW_Kernel_2.6.5]

I don’t agree with blocking off areas of the town

On a small server these areas may distract players from going where they are supposed but on a large server those areas give additional hiding places and routes.

We want to run the map on a 62 slot server once the hunkmeg use is reduced (if possible).

I love maps where you can explore all the areas and not be blocked by clip brushes.

[Massive]

OK guys - good progress here (I think)

latest sizes =

      114 models             4560		
      280 shaders           20160
    10709 brushes          128508
    86527 brushsides      1038324 *
        0 fogs                  0
    58226 planes           931616
      652 entdata           81837

     5048 nodes            181728
     5163 leafs            247824
    62739 leafsurfaces     250956
    46141 leafbrushes      184564

    29138 drawsurfaces    4312424 *
   220757 drawverts      17660560 *
   129300 drawindexes      517200

        0 lightmaps             0		
    14310 lightgrid        429300 *		
          visibility       815368		

          total          16914880		
                            16518 KB		
                               16 MB		

Hugh amount of tuning = 45% bsp size reduction.

I think it fits in the default hunkmegs - default is 56 I believe. I tried it in my virgin wolf install & it worked - I think it needs a test on another m/c before I really believe it.

FPS incereases are good (apart form a couple of very bad (small) areas - find them if you can - fps is up 20% or more with my machine.

I’ve got a bit of cleaning up to do (gaps in brushes error etc.) then I’ll try to release a beta2 next weekend.

Many other fixes from stretched windows (thanks shaderman) to playability, direction sense, sounds, wonky boat guns, 95% of Detoeni’s long list) etc. etc. - I’ll publish a list on release.

Kernel - I took note of your comments & un-blocked most areas I was going to block, there’s only one ‘side loop’ path you can’t get to - I think you should find enough additional hiding places & routes etc. - let me know

Regards

Massive

[Shaderman]

Hugh amount of tuning = 45% bsp size reduction.

Nice! How did you achieve this reduction?

[Massive]

1/ Lots of brush simplification
2/ converted several sections of brush to ASE
3/ converted previous ASE’s which were based on patchs back to patchs (ASE method is good for lots of things but NOT when making ASE of many patches)
4/ The complex end of the abbey had no structural caulk on - vis control was by hint brushes - replacing this with structural caulk (I thought I’d see what happened) and removing the hints, simplified the vis & gave better fps
5/ more strctureal caulk tuning
6/ added gridsize 256 246 512 to worldspawn & used lightmasize 512 in compile (now the gridsize thing was a q3map feature & not mentioned for q3map2 & I made both these changes at the same time so I’m not sure which had the most effect - anyway this gave a massive (= 99% from 29M to 1M) reductrion in the reported lightgrid size) By testmap experiment seems to suggest this is down to the gridsize change as not much was saved on the testmap with the lightmapsize change alone. Maybe if I ever have the time I’ll do a definitive test on the main map.
7/light -external - some idiot used to have -export then also excluded the exported files in the pk3 - dooh…
8/ made most of the models misc_gamemodes using that dummyvis entity so solve sudden appearance problems.

The breakdown of the changes as follows - looks a bit messy, but came out of a spreadsheet, so’ll probably paste straigh back in i u want to edamine it!!! :-{ )

		Beta1	Beta2	-diff	%
      118 models             4720			 4,560 	 440 	9%
      288 shaders           20736			 20,160 	 2,160 	10%
    10412 brushes          124944			 128,508 	 13,284 	9%
    84787 brushsides      1017444 *			 1,038,324 	 132,864 	11%
        1 fogs                 72			 -   	 72 	100%
    58616 planes           937856			 931,616 	 147,360 	14%
      663 entdata           83562			 81,837 	-3,590 	-5%
				 -   	
     5330 nodes            191880			 181,728 	 15,696 	8%
     5449 leafs            261552			 247,824 	 21,456 	8%
    63918 leafsurfaces     255672			 250,956 	 45,256 	15%
    48142 leafbrushes      192568			 184,564 	 43,040 	19%
				 -   	
    29290 drawsurfaces    4334920 *			 4,312,424 	 625,892 	13%
   247183 drawverts      19774640 *			 17,660,560 	 4,589,440 	21%
   206016 drawindexes      824064			 517,200 	 346,608 	40%
				 -   	
       34 lightmaps       1671168			 -   	 1,769,472 	100%
  1000008 lightgrid      30000240 *			 429,300 	 29,570,940 	99%
          visibility       929840			 815,368 	 296,096 	27%
1000008			 14,310 	 985,698 	99%
				 -   	
          total          28099408			 16,814,880 	 13,735,516 	45%
                            27440 KB					
                               26 MB					

			

cheers

Massive

[Northerner]

when will we see Beta 2??

[Shaderman]

I’ve got a bit of cleaning up to do (gaps in brushes error etc.) then I’ll try to release a beta2 next weekend.

Posted: Jan 15, 2006 - 04:00 PM

[Massive]

ahhh - I hit a nasty little scripting problem, which in fact was nothing to do with scriptng but with mapper stupidity, anyway the upshot of this is that there’s no Beta2 release today - cos it has to compile over night then I have to drive 200 miles to work early on Monday - for the whole week, which is seriously disrupting mapping activity.

So beta2 release next week-end

Cheers

Massive

[_PoW_Kernel_2.6.5]

Work always seems to get in the way of fun.