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Using Hint Brushes

Postby Breli » Fri Jul 22, 2005 10:22 pm

Hi fellas,

I have read through the tutorials and now I am wondering whether I should try to optimize my map by using hint brushes. I checked my map with showtris and it looked rather bad (as expected ;-)). Virtually the whole map is drawn from nearly every leaf node.

However, we tested the map on rather weak machines (Matrox G550 with 2.4 P4, LAN, 1GB) and the gameplay was fine with everything set to max (1280, textures, details ? at least 30 fps). I think most gamers will have much better equipment (at least a better video card). Additionally, the map is rather small (4-6 players) ?

I understand the usage of hint brushes in the examples but they aren't really comparable to my own map. I also checked how Spoon used hint brushes in Durango. But again, that map is quite different from my own. Since most of the buildings in Durango are ?blocks?, it is possible to create small ?chunks? (leaf nodes) by using hint brushes in order to increase performance ?

This it what my map looks like (I can't post a screenshot, so it is difficult to explain what I mean): there are a couple of buildings with windows and doors, roofs to crawl along, some cliffs ... Virtually, a player can go (and see) everywhere. Thus, I have no idea how I am supposed to use hint brushes. As a matter of fact, players can ALWAYS see the majority of the map (with some exceptions like the cave system). In this case, VIS is mostly right, AFAIK (I know that hint brushes are actually not used during VIS but they create portals that are used during VIS).

Thus, hint brushes won't be of any use if I get their usage right. I just can?t ?isolate? a portion of the map by using hint brushes.

Are there any heuristics that can help me to decide whether it is worth the work? I know that I should try to stay below 15000 triangles (taken from the nibs tutorial) but I don?t know how I can check how many triangles are actually drawn in each leaf node. I think I?ll have to redesign the map if I want to increase fps (closing windows, inventing new walls, stuff like that). I don?t really want to do that ?

Any suggestions? This is a question of imagination since you don?t know the map and I can?t post a screenshot ;-). Actually, this post is not really useful :-D but, at least, some traffic is generated in the editor's forum ...

Do you think that the map will be fine if it runs on machines with the specs given above?

breli
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Re: Using Hint Brushes

Postby El vAkonD » Fri Jul 22, 2005 10:48 pm

breli wrote:Do you think that the map will be fine if it runs on machines with the specs given above?

breli


No. I have a 1,6 p4 comp with riva tnt2, so i wouldnt like this map.. :?
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Hi Al! Do you want to run a test?

Postby Breli » Fri Jul 22, 2005 10:56 pm

Hi El,

Probably you can run a test for me? If you send me your e-mail, I'll send you the map and you can try it ... You would help me a lot! This is my first map (a newbie mapper ;-)) and I would really appreciate it, if you would do a little testing ...

What do you think?

breli
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Postby ReD NeCKersoN » Sat Jul 23, 2005 12:00 am

If it runs ok on El Vakond's pc then I wouldn't worry about the extra work. Your map is somewhat small, like you mentioned, so the map might run ok with just a few players in it. Personally, I am trying to learn the proper use of hint's as well....so I can't be of any help at this time. :?
You can use a free image hosting service like http://www.imageshack.us/ if you'd like to post some screenshots.
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Postby Shadoku » Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:22 am

Sounds like this map would kill my computer XD
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