Question about connecting hallways

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maz0r
Posts: 157
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2004 7:00 am

Question about connecting hallways

Post by maz0r »

Hi folks,

'cause of q4 being released soon I just started to map again. To get used to it I thought it would be best to finish my work on some old maps. And to my surprise, you cannot unlearn mapping as it seems - thats quite nice :)

So while building rooms and arches and trims and hallways and reading thru LEM again I stumbled across a thread dealing with Hint and PVS in general. So I began thinking about the best way to connect hallways.

I ended up with these two solutions:
Brush View
Image
3D Top View
Image

I didnt focus on T-Junctions (or what they were called) in this example and PVS isnt important either. So I wonder which solution will result in less tris count. Should be the right one I guess, but I really doubt that the right one is superior to the left.

So where are the experts? :D

regards, maz0r
P.S.: Glad to see you all are still strolling around here.

edit: some spelling...
pjw
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Joined: Sun May 07, 2000 7:00 am

Re: Question about connecting hallways

Post by pjw »

maz0r wrote:I didnt focus on T-Junctions (or what they were called) in this example and PVS isnt important either. So I wonder which solution will result in less tris count.
What.

Tris count is directly affected by both PVS and t-junctions (although there are more variables involved in the latter--e.g. whether faces are or can be merged, etc.), so they're both important to consider when looking for lower tris.

[/nitpicking]

That being said, I would almost always use the first method over the second (and miter the corners) simply because of ease of working with the resultant brushes. Whenever you have a single brush that contributes multiple faces to multiple walls/rooms/hallways it can quickly become a clumsy process when making alterations or doing any sort of detailing.

One simple example: Suppose you wanted to chop up the hallway on z and get some layering of textures in the hallway only; do that in your second example, and you would end up slicing up the wall of the room as well, or you would have to miter the brush. Once you start mitering up those hallway walls, you'll probably end up with about the same number of brushes as your first example anyway.

With triscounts quickly climbing into the tens or hundreds of thousands for a typical scene in recent games, fussiness regarding very precise and exacting construction techniques purely as a nod to minor triscount reduction is becoming more and more irrelevent, and construction with focus on flexibility and easy modification (and thus less rebuilding and less wasted time) is more important.

The wasted time factor isn't necessarily a big one if you're just doing it for a hobby and you don't really care how long it takes, but even when that's the case, it's still nice to do something in two nights instead of three. :)
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obsidian
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Re: Question about connecting hallways

Post by obsidian »

pjw wrote:and miter the corners
Just wanted to put extra emphasis on this. Miter those corners!
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urgrund777
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Post by urgrund777 »

if you're using the D3 engine (you mention Q4?), and those unmitered faces share the same texture, then there's no need to miter, the BSP compiler will merge the faces anyway. If its quicker for you to work by makeing the brushes like that, then do so...
pjw
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Post by pjw »

Yeah, just to be clear--the only reason I would miter w. D3 engine is to simplify working with one side of the corner vs. the other side, in case you wanted to do something different rather than turn the corner with a single theme/look. :)
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roughrider
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Post by roughrider »

WTF!? All the other posts are gone. :dork:
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hemostick
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Post by hemostick »

There was a problem with the database, so they restored the (several days old) backup.
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