clipping patches like in m4l0

small_sumo · Post by **small_sumo** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 10:01 pm

Have you noticed how perfectly clipped the road patches are in m4l0? I cannot figure out how he did it. I have piles of rubble (made from patches)that in some cases I can walk right through them, so I would like to clip them just the same. I would really like to know how they did it in m4l0 cos I will eat my hat if they did it one brush at a time. I tried csg subtract in a big brick of clip materiel but to no effect.

Thanks

Alcoholic · Post by **Alcoholic** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 11:33 pm

i think those were automatically clipped..

crunch · Post by **crunch** » Fri Jul 11, 2003 2:05 am

There are no clips in m4l0. The terrain and the road mesh are solid.
The trick is to leave no gaps, and delete the terrain polys under the road.

But if you post a screenshot of your area, maybe I'd have a better idea of why you are falling through/walking through.

Also, when working with terrain, make sure your LOD setting is at 100% triangles.

And patches, when stretched too far with too little complexity can cause trouble. If the polys split too many times with not enough vertices, they will not be where they appear to be in Radiant.

Kill Ya Later!

small_sumo · Post by **small_sumo** » Fri Jul 11, 2003 3:22 am

crunch wrote:There are no clips in m4l0. The terrain and the road mesh are solid.

Have another look, the road patches have clip brushes undernieth them.

bdbodger · Post by **bdbodger** » Fri Jul 11, 2003 3:30 am

I had a non solid mesh that was non solid due to the grass texture used so what I did was clone the mesh and give it the grass clip texture worked good .

tltrude · Post by **tltrude** » Fri Jul 11, 2003 7:22 am

Good idea bdbodger, you da man! I wonder if that would work for LOD Terrain as well? I hate it when granades find those cracks in solid terrain!

small_sumo · Post by **small_sumo** » Fri Jul 11, 2003 12:23 pm

Crunch I owe you an apology. I fixed the problem by makeing duplicates of the patches and giving them clip texture and then makeing them more complex, or you might say increasing the complexity. It seams that because the original brushes I had reduced the complexity so much that you could walk through them. I reduced they complexity because I had so much rubble and figured my map would lag out bigtime. So in short I fixed it because of what you said. "when stretched too far with too little complexity can cause trouble"
Thanks guys.
Bye

Alcoholic · Post by **Alcoholic** » Fri Jul 11, 2003 8:39 pm

does having a lot of clipse decrease fps?

crunch · Post by **crunch** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 6:01 pm

The clips themselves don't affect FPS. But the number of patches and the complexity of them directly affects FPS. More complex = more polys = lower FPS.

Kill Ya Later!

Alcoholic · Post by **Alcoholic** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 6:32 pm

so if i had a complex patch, covered with clip, and i pushed the space bar like 6 times, it wouldnt really affect performance?

crunch · Post by **crunch** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 11:41 pm

That makes me ask, why would you want to duplicate the clip six times?

But if you truly want to see the effects of a clip on FPS, then do as you said, and then complie the map. Then, at the same game settings, you will see that the FPS is not affected at all.

Basically, for visible brushes, you must ask yourself "What is the engine drawing when I am here in the map?" and also "What SHOULD the engine draw when I am here in the map?"

In either case, clip brushes are NOT drawn (rendered) by the game engine, and therefore will not affect FPS.
I cannot speak for minute changes in FPS when the game scripts are called, a true scripter could better reply to that, although I do know that scripted events can lower your FPS. As far as shaders, I do not know.
I once turned off the animations in the common tree, and compiled a testmap, and the FPS was no higher (or very very little difference) than the regular tree.
This led me to believe that in the case of static models, it is the polys being drawn when the game renders the model rather than the animation itself that affects FPS.
Again, I can only speak from my own experience, but I have yet to see a map that will lose FPS because the mapper inserted clips.

Kill Ya Later!

small_sumo · Post by **small_sumo** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 1:31 am

Just to recap, the lesson learned for me is make the patch turn it into whatever lump your lookin for thencopy it and cover the copy with clip then take the original and reduce the complexity to save on polys.
The end result is you will have no worries with players navigating the area.

Thanks buddies

Alcoholic · Post by **Alcoholic** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 1:45 am

we have to do this with all our patch roads? i never did this and i never saw problems...

small_sumo · Post by **small_sumo** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 8:12 am

Yeah only bother with clipping if you need it.

.Map :: MoHAA Mapping

clipping patches like in m4l0

clipping patches like in m4l0

Da man