How expensive are displacements?

[[XFunc]CaRteR]

I'm doing a map with a LOT of cliffs in it. I'm afraid all those displacements might grind the map to a slow chug.

One question:

When you make displacements out of pieces sewn together, does Source only draw one at a time if the others are beyond visibility? Or does it draw them all together if they are sewn up? (So if I can see a displacement in my own room, and the displacement wraps its way through the rest of the map, will the whole displacement get drawn by the GPU?)

[Lord Ned]

Displacements are less expensive to draw then world brushes.

Shouldn't have a problem regardless.

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Sew, as far as I know, just alters geometery/alpha of brushes so that they line up. It doesn't make it a huge brush.

[Lord Ned]

Correct.

[YM]

It depends who you buy them from, I've got a good supplier, I think he imports them from some asian country, so mine are quite cheap. Come to think of it, even if they aren't imported from some far off land they should still be quite cheap, if you're finding them quite expencive you've got the wrong dealer and should find a new one (or dob him in to the coppers)







....





[read: Displacements are cheap, but don't use power 4 when power 2 will do ;)]

[Lord Ned]

I've been having crashes (In Ep2 mind you) on Power of 4 dispalcements. Setting them down to three and sewing seems to keep the crashes out though.


(Offtopic, but close enough to displacements.)

[Spacemonkeynz]

Youme is right, use the lowest power you can, 2 and 3 should be fine for most things. The lighting makes displacements look pretty smooth in the final game, even if it is in fact quite rough.

[YM]

The strange thing is, the higher power displacements are usually the roughest and 9 times out of ten the most f****** ugly things ever. (in custom maps that is) Also, displacements that aren't square[ish] usually cause people to make them ugly - UNLESS YOU ARE GOOD AT DISPlACEMENTS TRY TO MAKE THEM AS SQUARE AS POSIBLE!!!

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Also, ad hoc displacements are bad. Gotta plan that stuff out early, imo. Saves from having to cut a bunch of stuff later.