Stoneyridge

CP stoneyridge rc2

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
Yeah, I had to roll back to the last copy it got from Hey You but I was able to band select the entire map and move it up and left by 4 units.. which looks like it got everything lined up nice and tidy.

Didn't seem to mess up any texture alignment either, but we should keep an eye out for problems.

It does mean I have to C&P the past few days of work but it's mostly just lights so it's not too bad.
 

heyyou

L4: Comfortable Member
Aug 19, 2009
191
121
The reason it was off was because of the skybox, at one point i had to move it to line it up. I would suggest checking the skybox to make sure the tower lines up.
 

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
We aren't doing the skybox tower anymore because we were having overlap problems with the full size one, right?

At any rate, the 3d skybox seems to line up okay, I'll do more testing to confirm.

But I did find an added bonus of getting the map back on the grid: vvis times were cut in half. Which doesn't help map performance really, but faster builds are always handy.
 

Crash

func_nerd
aa
Mar 1, 2010
3,316
5,499
I'm sure you're stoked for that, xzzy.

xzzy is now playing Team Fortress 2
xzzy is now playing Source SDK
xzzy is now playing Team Fortress 2
xzzy is now playing Source SDK
xzzy is now playing Team Fortress 2
xzzy is now playing Source SDK
xzzy is now playing Team Fortress 2
xzzy is now playing Source SDK
xzzy is now playing Team Fortress 2
xzzy is now playing Source SDK
xzzy is now playing Team Fortress 2
xzzy is now playing Source SDK
xzzy is now playing Team Fortress 2
xzzy is now playing Source SDK
xzzy is now playing Team Fortress 2
xzzy is now playing Source SDK
 

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
I usually leave TF2 running in the background to avoid that, but leaving TF2 open slows down vvis a bunch so sometimes when I get impatient I shut down TF2.

Be nice if there was a way to do lighting that didn't involve a million compiles. Hammer's lighting preview is nowhere near good enough.

And now I'm doing HDR lighting too which adds another 7 minutes to the build. :O
 

heyyou

L4: Comfortable Member
Aug 19, 2009
191
121
B7 will be in tomorrow's Gameday lineup for those of you interested:

Edit: Also, we are wanting to get these brick stacks and pallets made into one prop with lower poly-counts. The bricks came out of the construction pack. Can anyone direct me to the person who would be responsible for making the bricks? I'm hoping they might be interested in doing this for us. Pictures below of the brick stacks:
020B26CFB802D12912322F6AB1A153B643DFE379

0DA1A1FA5A220F875453C03A1D30D4D711E4991A

6661B2DB81FF08BC8E6F14FEB5FC6E029D732517
 
Last edited:

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
I copied some skybox techniques from Viaduct (thanks again to the guy who recommended it) that prevents rocket jumpers from seeing the void when getting up high, and while it still needs some tweaking, I think it looks really cool:

322FB26906CB23F046B36CF1B8C5CC077144BA51


714AFB4D536BC3D9A06F435B8F2F232FEFEDF5CD


Downside: it increases VVIS compiles by about 18 minutes. In game performance is about the same, maybe a couple FPS lost, but I'm thinking the benefits outweigh the penalties because it makes the map look a lot more "pro" if I may say so myself. I created a "FAST COMPILE" visgroup that we can check on that closes up the holes in the skybox I created, which speeds VVIS up for development builds (which on my system is about 2 minutes).
 

Crash

func_nerd
aa
Mar 1, 2010
3,316
5,499
Ooh... so you can see the tower from far back now? Awesome.

I am curious how you went about doing that though, I'll have to check out the VMF next time I get it.

We did have a few complaints about low FPS at the final point and the side pit though, so we still need to figure out some things to optimize further.
 

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
With the way the map is structured, I think our only option for the side pit (I'm assuming you're talking about the actual "stoney ridge" pit) is to delete props. I've tried every trick I can think of and nothing works.

Our best option may be to make as much of that pit as possible part of the 3d skybox. I hate to mention it because I think that area is a really pretty part of the map.. but it might have to be done. Or we just suck it up and deal with framerate complaints.

I think B's biggest problem (not that I'm convinced it's a problem, as near as I can tell the framerate there is competitive with most modern maps) is the number of props. We've got trains and silos and all kinds of barrels all over the place.


edit - actually I just took a closer look at B, and I see some easy optimizations we missed. I'll get them in and see where that leaves us.
 
Last edited:

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
It's hard to rely on that though, because from what I can tell, the game continues to draw the polygons for a some distance beyond turning fully invisible (which you can see by using mat_wireframe). And the fade in/out is really ugly so you have to be careful to not let players see it.

I have tweaked some fade distances around A, but it hasn't had a huge effect on framerate.. fixing hints had a much better effect.
 

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
Well, I got the areaportals on red's spawn working properly (previously they were doing nothing).. and gained a whole 3 fps on point B!

We're gonna have to make some tough choices if we want to speed up framerates in that area.
 

heyyou

L4: Comfortable Member
Aug 19, 2009
191
121
Last edited:

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
aa
Sep 5, 2010
6,394
5,571
btw, a few of us played the map last night, might want to check the feedback system for the little bits of feedback we got.


I'll be honest, I'm not 100% thrilled with the lighting, So when I get a chance I'll run through and highlight what you might be able to improve on.