Slowly but surely... (ODQ3DM6)

Post by **MKJ** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:55 am

or change the way stairs are handled.
quake2 had this issue as well out of the box. updating it to 3.20 fixed it though (maybe an earlier patch did it too, who knows).

tribes2 had the upupup thing going on as well. also a patch fixed it

Post by **TTK-Bandit** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:02 pm

awesome work o'dium

I'd really like to test it.

Post by **Eraser** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:10 pm

Great work! Does this stair clipping mean you can ramp jump off of stairs?

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:23 pm

Eraser wrote:Great work! Does this stair clipping mean you can ramp jump off of stairs?

Yes, of course. It was the whole point of me adding it to begin with. The other things that are fixed from this were jsut nice side effects

Post by **axbaby** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:06 pm

MidnightQ4 wrote:o'dium,

Would you mind giving some of us nooblars some hints as to how to get started on mapping? I tried opening up a q3 map in the q4 editor (+editor on your exec line guys ) but that didn't seem to work. So I guess what I'm asking is, is there a way to open q3 maps so as to tweak them out and convert them into q4 maps? I thought maybe converting dm7 or something would be a good way to get familiar with everything then tackle making a map from scratch.

http://www.quake.de/q3tod3/

i used this to convert my q3 maps to d3 then moved em to quake4 folder and presto i could edit me maps.
entities need to be deleted and you need to re-texture

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:08 pm

There one problem on this level so far, and thats draw distance. With the amount of lights it needs in a few spots, the long stretch view from the red armor to the railgun walkway at the end is a huge gap, and so frame rate is gonna be at its worst there. I'm trying my hardest to optimize ATM.

Post by **MidnightQ4** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:32 pm

axbaby wrote:
http://www.quake.de/q3tod3/

i used this to convert my q3 maps to d3 then moved em to quake4 folder and presto i could edit me maps.
entities need to be deleted and you need to re-texture

AWESOME! thx bro!

Post by **Don Carlos** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:32 pm

Good work man

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:59 pm

Right been messing with vis portals and so far its gotten me 10 extra FPS an locked me at 60 everywhere else. Thats good.

The problem is, this long stretch is a right twat to vis off... Anybody with any suggestions?

Ohhhh..> I could look how id did it on the original

Post by **R00k** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:06 pm

How exactly do vis portals work? They don't block you from viewing the things you would see otherwise, but they somehow lower framerates by not fully rendering everything?

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:15 pm

R00k wrote:How exactly do vis portals work? They don't block you from viewing the things you would see otherwise, but they somehow lower framerates by not fully rendering everything?

By default the engine draws everything in the level, no matter where you are. Frame rate is dependant on whats being drawn, thats why if you look at X corner, it could be fast, but at Y corner it could still be slow.

Vis Portals work by blocking off visibility at predefined ares, so that the level isn't fully drawn all the time.

Take for example, this level:

Now, by default the whole level will be drawn. However, if we apply Vis faces here (Blue blocks):

Then the engine will check what can actually be seen in these areas, and block visibility off where needed:

Its a simple trick thats sometimes a pain in the arse to get right, but its the reason you can have huge levels instead of farty rooms.

Post by **axbaby** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:21 pm

if you can't see it quake4 won't draw it.

good vis blocking helps in this matter but in an area with long hallway's, where you can see a long distance in all directions such as the Red Armour area the game draws too many triangles.

that's why many maps do not show large area with fancy shaders and lots of contruction.

fire up quake3 and load q3dm6
type r_showtris 1 and you'll see what good vis blocking does.

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:23 pm

Aye. I'm starting to think i should of caulked the map as well. Stock Quake 4 maps have caulk on everything except surfaces that can be seen and with a little test i did ages ago i found it caused odd shadows... I really should do that here as well. No biggie really, wouldn't take long.

The main gripe i'm having is with a decent vis. That long hallway wont be amazing no matter what but i cant seem to vis that area off, it draws everything when standing at the res armor still, and it should be right. Any ideas or suggestions?

Post by **axbaby** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:27 pm

does that auto caulk feature really work?
less curves/patches .. fake curves in that area with simple brushes near rl? ie rail bridge

Post by **Grudge** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:31 pm

Well, q3 is bsp based - the geometry does block vis, and you use hints to optimize the portals.

In the Doom3 engine, however, geometry does not block vis, and the engine does draw everything all the time unless you use portals. The graphics card may scissor tris out that are not visible, but the CPU still have to send all that data to the GPU. That's why it's so hard on CPU.

Portals are therefore necessary, but you can't simply put portals everywhere there are hint brushes in the Q3 map, they don't work the same way.

EDIT: plus, using areaportals in a MP map in a bsp based engine is not a good idea, because every time you cross a portal, all the entities that were previously culled has to load at the same time, which causes hickuping and freezes in a MP game.

I don't know if it works the same with enteties in the Doom3 engine? Or are they always loaded/drawn, regardless of portals?

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:32 pm

There is a lot of fake curves already. TBH the problem ISNT with brush work. I tried the map without lights and it ran fine.

The problem is that when i stand at the red armor, i dont just draw that long stretch, i draw all the way over to the pillars and LG, no matter how i visblock it off...?

I must be vising it wrong around there, but where?!

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:36 pm

Well im not doing anything stock Quake 4 maps dont do

Some of the maps are hacked to shit with vis brushs.

Post by **axbaby** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:37 pm

i seem to be out to lunch on the differences between quake3 and quake4 as far as vis blocking goes.

ambient light may be the way to go?

i was going to say make damn sure all relevant brushes are structural but Grudge's info makes me realize i gotta learn a bit more.

Post by **Don Carlos** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:39 pm

o'dium wrote:Aye. I'm starting to think i should of caulked the map as well.

Erm YES caulk everything man
Even i know that and i dont map loads...

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:46 pm

Don Carlos wrote:
o'dium wrote:Aye. I'm starting to think i should of caulked the map as well.
Erm YES caulk everything man
Even i know that and i dont map loads...

GOOD IDEA THEN THE WALLS WILL DISAPEAR WWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!11122

Post by **Grudge** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:49 pm

This is the only info I've managed to find about vising in the Doom3 engine:

http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/visportals.php

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:09 pm

Thanks Grudge, nothing new really

The best place to look is the stock Q4 maps, they havea lot of good vising in them.

This is the area i need to vis:

Post by **Pro*Neo** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:13 pm

It looks amazinggggg, o´dium your work is impresive

Post by **o'dium** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:14 pm

Right, looking at large maps with open gaps in the geometry such as q4ctf4, I've noticed that they vis ANYTHING lol. Doorways all get vised obviously but i'm talking huge holes just have a massive visbrush over them, which i guessed anyways. I just couldn't get it to work before when i tried it...

Its strange because they seem to vis AREA x but then AREA y thats pretty much the same doesn't get vised... Hmmmm...

This is gonna hurt me i tell ya...

Post by **Don Carlos** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:39 pm

o'dium wrote:
Don Carlos wrote:
o'dium wrote:Aye. I'm starting to think i should of caulked the map as well.
Erm YES caulk everything man
Even i know that and i dont map loads...
GOOD IDEA THEN THE WALLS WILL DISAPEAR WWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!11122

Oh you know what i ment you Pedantic Bastard!!!