**New Map Relase***Siwa_Teuthonia

(KeMoN) #41

I attached your screenshot again and added red rectangles. These show imo unnecessary structural brushes and edges. I can be wrong since I’m judging this from a screenshot and don’t have the 3D environment and don’t know where the players can go.
Just remember to only create a structural brush if it can block off a different part of the map and keep it as clean and simple as possible. Especially the two rectangles on the left are good examples of unnecessary edges that create additional cuts (or leaf nodes). I hope this helps to bring a little light into the foggy functionality of structural/detail.

(Teuthis) #42

Thanks KeMon, i see what you mean. I’ll See what I can do. Thanks

Edit: After Playing around with the First Room, i decreased VIS datasize by 1.3MB but the hunkused is exactly as before. Will Try how it Looks when I move on with the Other Areas.

(-SSF-Sage) #43

[QUOTE=Teuthis;526178]after a couple of days ‘optimization’ I now shortened the map by 2000 brushes, made the voice commands lowest Sound Quality possible, substituted some textures with original ones, changed many TGA in Jpg, made sure all textures are 512 x512 max (more than 80% is 256 x 256) the result is : ZERO

this arabic style and the multitude of blending eats more Memory than the european maps with straight walls etc.

the conclusion is that the map will stay as it is. I could eliminate most of the blending but then the map is not what it is now anymore. So I prefer that the map is only played on those Server where more advanced Folks hang around and who know how to manually set the hunkmegs to something higher than 56.

I’m sorry for Those who will need to avoid Playing the Map. If admins are afraid to Loose Folks because of hunkmeg Problems I am sorry but I am sure People like the Game enough to ask for help on the respective Server/Clan Forums and everyone able to install and Patch the Game should also be able to find the config file and change the hunkmegs.

Positively thinking this might mean that my Future Projects will only be played on Advanced server like the Legacy ones. This might at some Point attract More People to Play Legacy, just because there are Other Maps played as compared to other Server.

I Really tried to help but I don’t want to Cut Quality. I still think that map offers Very unique objectives That Players like. But I understand and accept that admins want to Keep as many People as possible on their server.[/QUOTE]

By the way. Did you ever compile with -info? I was tackling with very similar situation today in one map. And doing almost anything dropped nearly no hunkmegs. However compiling -info revealed that lightgrid ate huge amount of memory. So I added a lightgrid brush and put gridsize value of 128 128 256 and recompiled. Dropped 5 megs without noticing difference ingame.

If you have not optimised lightgrid at all, I might guess this might do even bigger effect on your map. Best thing is that you will most likely never notice the difference ingame. You might even get away with gridsize 256 256 512 and save even more (thought the save/notice ratio is very low).

(twt_thunder) #44

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to -SSF-Sage again.

great tip dude :slight_smile:

(Teuthis) #45

Interesting Point Sage. Indeed I optimized a Lot of VIS without any difference in the hunkmegs.

I have to say that I Struggle a bit with some of what you mention. How do you compile with info? What do you mean with adding a lightgrid brush? I know how to adjust the grid size for lightgrid compile but Not sure what you mean with lightgrid brush added…

Thanks for clarification

(-SSF-Sage) #46

[QUOTE=Teuthis;527534]Interesting Point Sage. Indeed I optimized a Lot of VIS without any difference in the hunkmegs.

I have to say that I Struggle a bit with some of what you mention. How do you compile with info? What do you mean with adding a lightgrid brush? I know how to adjust the grid size for lightgrid compile but Not sure what you mean with lightgrid brush added…

Thanks for clarification[/QUOTE]

How to compile with -info? Just instead of adding bsp/vis/light to your compile, simply add -info on q3map2. Then you should also have a bsp available in the folder with full final compile. Info will read the sizes from the bsp file and do nothing else. I have added this switch to radiant, so I can do it straight from radiant (1.5.0) build menu with [q3map2] -info “[MapFile]”

Lightgrid brush (brush with common/lightgrid shader) should basicly be the area where your player models will be moving in. Add just a few inches more. This will basicly be the area where dynamic models (players, guns, misc_gamemodels…) will be lit by the grid light. Like in dark spot your playermodel turn darker. Afaik it should be just one brush with 4 straight sides and it will go past the skybox and void if needed. If a map has a spot that is clipped and cannot be travelled in, it should not extend much to it, if it is on the edge of map. Then to make sure when some panzers or grenades get out of grid area, add key _mingridlight to worldspawn, I think values between 30-70 are commonly used (Oasis has 64). Then the models travelling outside the brush area will not get black (will not really notice). I think it will automatically upscale the brush area to next big lightgrid block (so light grid will be just like 15x20x5 blocks with size of your gridsize or something).

Usually we can get away with quite low quality light grid, because the effect is not very strong, and playermodel will not be able to use all those small differences. Generally in small inside maps have higher quality (64-128 units) and in large outdoor maps the grid size could be very large (128-512, even 512 512 512). Just play around in /cg_thirdplayer 1 and find what suits your map. Most common ones are 128 128 256 or 256 256 512. I think the default should be 128 128 256, but it does not do quite that for me.

With multiple floor houses, be careful having large Z numbers, because if you have dark basement, it could make for instance your bright first floor be using the light of basement for dynamic models.

(twt_thunder) #47

Jeez didnt know there should be a lightgrid brush at all

(KeMoN) #48

It is optional, like Sage explained it is to avoid unnecessary calculations of light in areas where the player cant enter anyway. You can have a look at the fueldump source file. It is using lightgrid brushes. It covers everything from the ground up, but only reaches slightly higher than the accessible terrain/buildings. However there is nothing more to say to this subject, since Sage already covered everything nicely! I’m curious to what extend Teuthis can report improvements by using this method! Never used it myself.

(Teuthis) #49

Very interesting Indeed. As Said optimizing VIS, Even by 2.5 MB did Not do anything on the hunkmegs. I’ll give it a Try and Report Here shortly.

(Teuthis) #50

I now spend several days trying to optimize the hunkmegs. Nothing I did changed the hunkmegs at all. I did use a lightgrid brush,tested various gridsizes and _blocksizes in the worldspawn etc. I could actually nicely lower the vis data size, decrase the bsp file size but nothing I touched the hunkmegs used.

I conclude that the map will stay as it is. If people prefer to drop the map from their Servers because People can’t find and modify their config files, so be it.

(Smoke) #51

Maybe it helps if you delete some models

(Mateos) #52

Their skins take up memory, not the models themselves, since they’re compiled inside the map… Unless they’re high poly.

(diaboliksmart) #53

Hi Teuthis, according to you, is-it possible to have a “light” version of this map ?
I mean I’d like to run the trilogy on my server, and I can’t because it is impossible to fix the issue, even with chat/forums etc …
V55

(Teuthis) #54

What’s the issue? Still tha the Hunkmegs need to be set to 128? I tried a lot to fix this but nothing changed the hunkmegs…

(diaboliksmart) #55

Yes Teuthis, about the hunkmegs kick.
Anyway I don’t worry, sure one mapper around will do it in future xD

PS: Hey, forest really rocks and players love it man :slight_smile: Congrat again !

(Teuthis) #56

[QUOTE=diaboliksmart;545983]Yes Teuthis, about the hunkmegs kick.
Anyway I don’t worry, sure one mapper around will do it in future xD

PS: Hey, forest really rocks and players love it man :slight_smile: Congrat again ![/QUOTE]

What about making a tutorial that shows people how to find the config file, open it, look for the hunkmeg entry and then change it? It is so easy to fix this in the config file.

I really tried hard to fix it. When I have some time I will come up with a new version. I also want to place an axis cp spawn in the map.

And thanks for the feedback on the teutoburg forest

(Dragonji) #57

Ask your players to use ET Legacy or add a banner about it on your server.

(Teuthis) #58

I am working on a new version of the map. What I’m going to change is:

  • hunkmegs used no more than 56. this will likely mean that lots of blending will need to be removed
  • add an Axis cp spawn
  • flip the gun control and gun fire positions.
  • native12 will make the waypoints btw

Will take some weeks

(Teuthis) #59

I have the hunkmegs down to 51 MB. Turned out the interior wall blending ate up quite some memory. It was enough to change two areas of the map. I will now change a few more things that I think will improve the gameplay.

But I can fonfirm that fixed map is going to be released at some point soon. I will likely wait until we have the waypoints etc ready to then release a full package.