Too Many Patches?! And...

[Havoc_covaH]

Hey all, is there some way I can turn a piece of LOD into brush.
I have 2 sides of LOD, both of which nearly cover the whole radiant grid.
When I compile the map (not a lot of stuff completed, basicly just terrain), I get a message saying I have too many patches or something, and it stops at 64% when the compiler calculates light diffuse grid (I think).
I just need some way to fix this.

Another problem I've had, is the compiling taking forever, we're talking weeks, and I have never seen it complete. So temporarily, I have made a small hole (around 64x64) in the bottom of the skybox, and I get faster compiling, and the map is pretty clean. This cuts off the radiosity but I don't know what that is. Am I doing the right thing? Is there a better way?

[smartaiguy]

I'd dont know if you can convert LOD to brushes, but try deleting flat sections of the LOD and replace them with brushes, to cut down on LOD. Also decrease the complexity of the LOD, less triangles.

Cutting holes always speeds up the process but when it comes time for the final compile you'll need to patch that up as vis and farplane will not be correct.

As for radiosity bounce, that basically means if you've got red carpet and if its bright enough it puts reflection on the wall giving the wall a bit of red. Most cases there won't be much of it, unless there's a big contrast in the surface color.

[Havoc_covaH]

Thanks.

I think it might help if I caulk the LOD I don't want/need. I had already set the triangles to 6.25%.

I think EasyGen could do the trick, but I've never used a plugin before; I can't even find EasyGen in radiant (I put the plugin file in the radiant directory).

[smartaiguy]

Caulking will really help fps, but not the too much polys though

[smartaiguy]

Also make sure you've unzipped the plugin file

[General Death]

You can convert it in a sence...

You could save an image of your lod terrain and then use that image to make brush terrain with Gensurf.

For large ourdoor maps brush terrain is the way to go

[smartaiguy]

You can convert it in a sence...

You could save an image of your lod terrain and then use that image to make brush terrain with Gensurf.

For large ourdoor maps brush terrain is the way to go

yes Lod can become very complex.

[Havoc_covaH]

Well my LOD was made to be a base for a city

[tltrude]

If you hold Ctrl and Shift, you can highlight one or more 512 X 512 sections of LOD. Then under LOD Terrain click on "detach selected patches". Now that they are detached, you can delete them.

If your city is flat, delete the LOD and replace it with a single brush. You can always add simple patch mesh for hills or rubble piles. You should also consider making your map smaller--large maps run very poorly in the game, unless you know how to block off parts of the map from the players view.

Hope that helps.

[rOger]

Thanks.

I think it might help if I caulk the LOD I don't want/need. I had already set the triangles to 6.25%.

I think EasyGen could do the trick, but I've never used a plugin before; I can't even find EasyGen in radiant (I put the plugin file in the radiant directory).

Ok this sounds strange. The scale 6.25% setting is just a raidant feature to draw the terrain quicker in the editor, this will not affect the performance in the game. You have to use edit facet flags to decrease the level of detail in LOD terrain.

[smartaiguy]

Thanks.

I think it might help if I caulk the LOD I don't want/need. I had already set the triangles to 6.25%.

I think EasyGen could do the trick, but I've never used a plugin before; I can't even find EasyGen in radiant (I put the plugin file in the radiant directory).

Ok this sounds strange. The scale 6.25% setting is just a raidant feature to draw the terrain quicker in the editor, this will not affect the performance in the game. You have to use edit facet flags to decrease the level of detail in LOD terrain.

A higher scale will add more triangles so it does increase the triangles drawn.

[rOger]

Only in radiant, and that is of no importance as we usually play the map in the game and not in the editor.

You will have to set the scale to 100% to get the closet resemblance to how it will look in game.

[smartaiguy]

yeah on a larger scale yes, but I think you can get really detailed on 100% , maybe not...

[smartaiguy]

whoops , I was wrong. 100% triagnles lets you see what it looks like in game.