Level building with actors

nanogod · Post by **nanogod** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:25 pm

Hi guys!

I have a few questions regarding level design. Maybe it has been mentioned befor, but i couldnt find...

If so, please point me to a tut or something.

what would be a better way to use actors as level geometry? SEPs or SEMs?

I plan to do BASIC Geometry with BSPs, but that would only apply to a floor and a few rooms, i plan to do all the remainig things with Actors because of better details.

I want the actors for Levelgeometry to have the following attributes:
They must have normal/bump and/or specular mapping, they should be animatable, they should cast shadows on them self and on bsp,

What do you guys do? What are your suggestions, what are the restrictions, and where are the problems?

Thank you for help!

Post by **AndyCR** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:29 pm

heres a tutorial on that very thing:

http://www.freewebs.com/andycr/staticmeshes.htm

from the tutorial:

The StaticMesh Entity

[...]The downsides include the fact that bumpmapping does not work with static meshes[...]

so it would appear that a SEP is your only option.

nanogod · Post by **nanogod** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:41 pm

Thanks AndyCR!

That is exactly the informatin i have searched for!

Great!

(BTW: incredible fast response...)

Thanks!

nanogod

Tabulanis · Post by **Tabulanis** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:38 am

SEPs Static mesh entities work best for visuals but the down side is too many high poly SEPS slow things down alot I found. They have no colision but you can use clip brushes or invisable staic mesh entities to do that for them. I have been using a healthy mix of the two. If you need good transperancy then you have to use SEPS bbut if you want the poly to be culled nicly when you leave an area you are out of luck. SMEs work well for this however.

So its kind of a toss up. You just have to try one or the other untill you get good viuals and good framerate.

nanogod · Post by **nanogod** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 12:51 pm

Thanks a lot!
This are good advices!

I will experiment with this.
Maybe i will post something if i come up with something good

Sadly, my sparetime is rather limited, but i will see...

A further question regarding this:

Can i make larger parts of a level in one SEP/SEM? or is it better (for framerate...) to split it up in several smaller pieces?

So what is better: a few large meshes or a lot of small ones?

Thanks and keep this forum as cool as it is

Nanogod

Post by **AndyCR** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:19 pm

i dont know the internals of how the engine culls SEP's, but im going to make an educated guess and say that several small ones would be best. SME's, however, are culled by the BSP system from what i heard, so it really dosen't matter for them.

nanogod · Post by **nanogod** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:39 pm

cool. sounds good.

What about mapping?
cann both Entities (SEP and SEM) have normal mapping Specular mapping etc...?

Do the both cast shadows on BSP geometry? I have made a quick test, and i cant get any shadows to work...

strange... or reality

Thanks again...

nanogod

Post by **AndyCR** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:30 pm

Shadows can be annoying to get to work.

From the tutorial i gave a link to, under the Static Mesh section:

The downsides include the fact that bumpmapping does not work with static meshes, and stencil shadows do not either.

So if you want normal mapping or shadows, you need to use an SEP.

http://www.freewebs.com/andycr/stencilemboss.JPG

The pipe in that shot is an SEP. (It was really cool because i used my flashlight and could strafe around it and have the shadow react perfectly... It's good to have stencil buffer shadows)

nanogod · Post by **nanogod** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 1:39 pm

OK,

i experimented with SEPs and SEMs.
I following things figured out:

Collision works great on SEMs
I managed to do collision quite nice on SEPs. I uses the same mesh as a SEM, and set the transparency to full. so the SEM is not visible, and does the collision for the SEP.

SEMs can recieve light from normal lights, but not from dynamic lights.
SEPs dont recieve any lightning.
Both dont recieve shadows.
My flashlight dont affect any of these meshes.

Am i correct or am i missing something?

Greetz

nanogod

hike1 · Post by **hike1** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:41 pm

rmany

New postPosted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 4:39 am Post subject: Reply with quote
OK,

i experimented with SEPs and SEMs.
I following things figured out:

Collision works great on SEMs
I managed to do collision quite nice on SEPs. I uses the same mesh as a SEM, and set the transparency to full. so the SEM is not visible, and does the collision for the SEP.

SEMs can recieve light from normal lights, but not from dynamic lights.
SEPs dont recieve any lightning.
Both dont recieve shadows.
My flashlight dont affect any of these meshes.

Am i correct or am i missing something?

You're correct, check 'domes.zip' at
http://terrymorgan.net/download.htm

RF FAQ http://terrymorgan.net/rffaq.zip