[Article] Stairs and your map.

[Acumen]

i like insights tutorial on detailling your map with lots of explaining pictures.
very nice !!

[The Political Gamer]

Very good read! +1 Thanks!

[Gerbil]

Good read. Thanks!

[flux]

beautiful

[Terr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grazr

[It is often convinient to have certain stairs of your own converted from brush work to a model, if you have the social connections or ability to do this yourself, it can be a healthy pay off. As a models equivilant cost to memory is significantly lower than that of brush work (another topic altogether, however).

Another topic, you say? Darn
I'm thinking of changing some brushwork to models myself, but wasn't sure of the benefits/downsides. (Aside from perhaps making them easier to animate and spin without using a physics motor.)

[grazr]

As long as it is detail work, then it shouldn't really compromise your maps performance. Stairs are generally not used to break line of sight for vvis and end up func_detailed anyway. It is also useful to make a model from any detail brush work that is repeated in your map, due to how the game calls forth the mesh from its memory. I wouldn't convert anything that was intended to be a solid wall into a model. It helps when you understand how vis, hints and areaportals work to know what's appropriate, so i'd say start your research there.

Another interesting fact i forgot to mention is that the trims are often set to func_lod rather than func_detail. I'm not sure why Valve don't make the whole staircase func_detail or func_lod, but they just func_lod the trims and func_detail the steps.

[Ninjilla]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grazr

As long as it is detail work, then it shouldn't really compromise your maps performance. Stairs are generally not used to break line of sight for vvis and end up func_detailed anyway. It is also useful to make a model from any detail brush work that is repeated in your map, due to how the game calls forth the mesh from its memory. I wouldn't convert anything that was intended to be a solid wall into a model. It helps when you understand how vis, hints and areaportals work to know what's appropriate, so i'd say start your research there.

Another interesting fact i forgot to mention is that the trims are often set to func_lod rather than func_detail. I'm not sure why Valve don't make the whole staircase func_detail or func_lod, but they just func_lod the trims and func_detail the steps.

I dont fully remember what func_lod does, but if I recall it controls when the prop appears to the player, so maybe they make the trim func_lod to save on how much is drawn at a time but make sure players know the stairs are still there because they are just func_detail? Just a guess.

[Terr]

I know the whole vvis/visleaf angle, but are there any performance benefits from, say, a runtime rendering perspective, assuming the same complexity? Do benefits scale with the number of times you repeat the prop?

[grazr]

Well lod stands for Level of Detail, which is a function usually associated with models. Models having different versions of themselves of different levels of detail, to render at respective distances, to improve performance.

---

Yes, the effect would essentially scale. Mostly it's to do with the model itself rather than the .bsp or ingame rendering, as the game pulls the model from elsewhere; whilst brush work is rendered and computed on a case by case basis, it will only have to take a model once and cache it for other copies of itself. So it will also lower your bsp file size. There are also ingame performance benefits, how ever i am not sure as to the actual render based benefits behind how models are rendered at a lower cost than brushwork. A whole bunch of different processes are at work that differ with models to brushwork, such as lighting and physics. But the vertex rendition of a material is somehow more efficient than brush based geometry. Similarly to how displacement faces are rendered in a batch process, which is covered briefly in several 'displacement roof' tutorials around the net.

[YM]

Don't forget textures such as metal/metailstair001a

Its a HL2 texture, but it's made it into a lot of the valve tf2 maps because it just fits in well.

-Don't be affraid to use HL2 textures if they blend in!