Outdoor areas

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Sph!nx
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Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:26 pm

Outdoor areas

Post by Sph!nx »

Okay, a few more questions:

I've been working on a terrain for a large outdoor level. To make large outdoor areas; I can't use brushes larger than 4000 texels and I can scale everything down for even larger area's right? What should I concidder as the absolute maximum in outdoor spaces with these two techniques in mind? Also, what scales can you recommend me? 0.8, 0.4 ?

Now here's my question regarding FPS. I want large open spaces, therefore I limit the viewdistance and mask that with a fog effect to keep 'system stress' to a minimum. Now I do wonder if there is a limit of objects behind the view of the player. In other words; is there somekind of entity limit?

Thanks ahead!
Regards Sph!nx

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Jay
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Post by Jay »

You can use brushes that are larger than 4000 texels but there is a limit where the level editor just gives up and wont let you compile it anymore. It then says something like 'Brush 0, entity 0 bounds out of range' when you try to compile and gives you a 'Leak'-error.

A good PlayerScale is 0.2 from my experience. I use it myself and now 1200x1200 texels seems big enough for a little village. Remeber, when you have a PlayerScale of 0.2, the world looks 5 times bigger than normal, so my 1200x1200 texels level looks like 6000x6000 texels. When you'd use a PlayerScale of 0.8, the world would just be 1.25 times bigger than normal. That's almost no difference to a PlayerScale of 1.0.

An entity limit - yes there is a limit. It is somewhere beneath 250 of one kind (I don't remember anymore, it's been a long time since i last used that many entities. But it is not advisable to make too many entities, because too many entities will slow down the engine even if they don't have to be rendered.
Everyone can see the difficult, but only the wise can see the simple.
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Sph!nx
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Post by Sph!nx »

Thanks alot!
Regards Sph!nx

Sven Co-op, DevEd: Development & Editing
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Sph!nx
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Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:26 pm

Post by Sph!nx »

Ive been testing this out and appearantly I need to do alot more than a simple rescale of the player, models and world. My weapons are unchanged and so is the speed I move. Can someone please point me in the direction of how to fix this? Also, can you please explain what other things to keep in mind when scaling stuff down?

Thanks ahead!
Regards Sph!nx

Sven Co-op, DevEd: Development & Editing
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Juutis
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Post by Juutis »

You'll need to scale the weapons down as well. In the weapon definitions in weapon.ini there's a line 'scale = ...'.

The player's speed is defined in the environmentsetup entity. The field is called 'Speed'.

You should scale the textures and light maps in the level down too. You can define these scales in the 'Face Attributes'. Select a brush and press Page Down.
Pain is only psychological.
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Sph!nx
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Post by Sph!nx »

Thanks Juutis!
Regards Sph!nx

Sven Co-op, DevEd: Development & Editing
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