I was just have a look around tmt, I found this thread http://www.modtheater.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11379
Now I saved myself about 4-5 hours on the VIS stage without any noticeable depreciation in FPS, so its all good, I used fast vis when I compiled. Now I am not totally sure where a full vis compile would be needed, confused but saved myself a lot of time
Philip II of Macedon sent a message to Sparta:
"If I win this war, you will be slaves forever."
The Spartan ephors sent back a one word reply: "If".
Doing a verbose compile for the vis will make the bsp file size smaller. But, I have a map that has a lot of detail brushes and the difference between fast and verbose was only .2 Mb--not worth the time spent.
Verbose just prints out more messages when it is compileing does nothing to help compileing . It means verbal more messages to let you know what is happening dureing the compile .
Fast VIS means that it will not calculate which portals that can see which, basically all portals can see each other. The reason you should run a normal vis and not fast vis is that you will get better fps, since it will calculate what a portal can see or not can see.
The reason you get the same FPS in fast VIS as in normal VIS is that the map is not planned in such way that VIS is effective. Then you don't have to bother with full vis.
Full vis does not take long time if it's a well planned map. The map I'm currently working on "Senjou Shima" has a vis data of 226k and full vis takes about 3 minutes. FPS are very high compared to a fast vis compile
I have made other maps with less vis data but vis compile took about 12 hours....and no difference in fps between the compiles. That's because I made it before I understood this whole VIS thing!!
Storm.... let discuss. I've read your vis guide several times and really appreciate the difficulty of trying to convey the content.
Couple questions though.
1. on some of my big outdoor maps, VIS works great...high FPS all around and only 'fast' VIS....most brushes 'detailed'.
2. on my more complex wrecked city scape maps, i've always tried to leave major, intact walls 'structural' and all other stuff detail. Again I use 'fast' VIS and get good FPS, sometimes great FPS. Now, it always appeared to me that by doing a 'full' VIS compile never gained me anything except time spent in compile.
SO, would it really make a difference to make ALL brushes detail because since my entire map is divided by VIS leafgroups, the engine should be paying attention ONLY to them, not the 'structural' brushes within them. Or am I still, after a year of mapping, missing the point???
Tough to figure out for me sometimes as I often wonder and experiment with what should work better. Fortunately, even though my maps are not always optimized to block sight lines on their own, I've gotten away with using VIS to boost FPS to above average levels....although I still manage to have one spot in some maps where it struggles... Follow me?
VIS_leafgroups work with fast VIS too (it's a kind of manual shut down of areas), this means that if you have used VIS_leafgroups in the entire map and planed for it then you don't have to do a full vis, that would be overkill!!
Placing VIS leafgroups in an entire map is a lot of work but it gives you a great control over what is going to be drawn or not.
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HITP Lead Mapper
Member of Electronic Arts MOHteam
TheStorm wrote:This is an endless discussion, lol!!
VIS_leafgroups work with fast VIS too (it's a kind of manual shut down of areas), this means that if you have used VIS_leafgroups in the entire map and planed for it then you don't have to do a full vis, that would be overkill!!
Placing VIS leafgroups in an entire map is a lot of work but it gives you a great control over what is going to be drawn or not.
For my large open map manual VIS was the only option.
However the compile times didn't get respectable until I added a worldspawn variable "vis_derived" as 1. The BSP compile went from 6.5 days to under 3 minutes.
CorporalPunishment wrote:
For my large open map manual VIS was the only option.
However the compile times didn't get respectable until I added a worldspawn variable "vis_derived" as 1. The BSP compile went from 6.5 days to under 3 minutes.
6.5 days on fast vis.....you must be kidding!!
TMT admin, visit www.modtheater.com
HITP Lead Mapper
Member of Electronic Arts MOHteam
No he isnt, but the thing is one way or another you must do a full vis, you can cheat on the lighting with fast light but never with vis, not if you want your map to be the best it can be.
Aight Listen, If you want a faster compile Time, Make a Way smaller Sky Box. Make the Sky no more than maybe 1000 units off the ground and no more than maybe 300 below(under the map)
If you ever played The Hunt on demo and cheated, Remeber when you could go under the map? Its becuase that was the sky that you were walking on.
I closed my sky in and compiling times went faster by 45minutes.
