.Map :: MoHAA Mapping

Hi guys here goes a theorical question

Well I have under the main floor level of the map some subterranean galleries. Of course then I have this big black void under my main level.
And of couse there are no lights so everything is dark, except it's not reallly dark, I can see the shape of the tunnels, the fog far away and some residual lighting which I guess comes from the ambienlight.
The question is : What is the best way to make fps-friendly this area of the map?

Surrounding the whole thing under the main floor with brushes?

In that case what texture should they have?

Caulk, Caulk Sky, No Draw, Sunblock?

Leave it like this?

Some other ideas?

I Know nobody is going to see that area (well in spectator mode it's of course possible), but the fact there is light makes me think the graphic engine is processing all that information when in fact it's just useless...

Thank you very much in advance for your reply

Use common/caulk (NOT common/blanklightmap)

If your underground is outside the skybox, You should extend the walls of the skybox down below it and add a new bottom skybox brush with caulk texture. That will assure that your skybox is still sealed--even if there is a leak in the underground tunnels or rooms.

Because the sunlight is blocked, you wll need to add lights, or more ambientlight, to see down there.

tltrude wrote:If your underground is outside the skybox, You should extend the walls of the skybox down below it and add a new bottom skybox brush with caulk texture.

Arent you giving the poor guitar-man bad advice here? If you want better FPS, it is a REALLY bad idea to "quickfix" leaks by slapping a skybox around it. The way to go here should be to be sure there are no leaks in the underground tunnels.
If they are made from patch mesh you should put a "shell" of structural brushes around the tunnels ( textured with commn/caulk where the player cant see ).

Stratocaster: Are you asking for a way to raise FPS in areas where the player cant get to? Or did I misunderstand your formulation?

In fact there are no leaks at all! The tunnels are inside the skybox. The thing is maybe hard to explain, I will post a screenshot as soon I get back home. All surfaces are textured with common/caulk inside the void because the skybox under the main floor level is covered with caulked walls to avoid external lighting outside the tunnels. As I mentioned before, the only way for a player to see that area is to "navigate" in spectator mode. As everything is still inside the skybox, there is ambienlight even in the tunnels.
I thought the game graphic engine would be wasting efforts generating light in an area nobody is going to see. That's why I think I might increase general fps by "blinding" that whole area which in fact is extremely huge. As there is ambienlight, even if everything is sealed with tight walls, there is still some light that lets you see the external subterranean structure. So the question is :
What is the best way (in Radiant) to make a whole big, dark, wide area fps_friendly?
I have Common/Caulkt texture everywhere but I wonder if there is a better way...
As I mentioned before, Maybe Sunblock will totally blind the area, maybe caulk sky, no draw?
Or maybe raise the Skybox to fit the outside world and leave the sealed tunnels outside?
What would a PRO do?

I dont think you need to bother at all with that area. To my knowledge, the fact that there is light there ( "outside" the map ) does not lower your FPS unless it is dynamic lights. The ambientlight, sunlight and point lights are compiled into the lightmaps at LightCompile.
The FPS lowering stuff for you now ( related to light ) is more about lighting the player. So say you have 50 point lights in that tunnel: calculating the dynamic lights that affect your moving player model will take a lot of CPU. But the light from these lamps that affect the walls and other static stuff is not calculated realtime, its pre-compiled at light compile, so it wont affect your FPS in a big way.

Do I make any sense?

The light compile only lights textures, not empty spaces with caulk texture. Here is an old map of mine that had LOD terrain and tunnels.



Notice that there are no textured surfaces on the outside of the tunnel brushes (except caulk). The bottom shybox brush is caulk, and the walls of the skybox are also caulk below the terrain. I did that because I was copying what I saw in the example map (m4l0) that comes with radiant. It had low fps, but I didn't know much about "manvis" back then, and the map design was too open.

Most of the fps drain from lighting comes from the lightmap that makes shadows. Say you have a large column with four lights around it--not to close. There would be 4 shadows on the ground for one column. The game has to keep track of these spots so it knows when to lighten or darken the player models, hands, and guns. So, the more light sources there are, the harder it has to work.

I guess the whole thing makes sense now. The screenshot posted by tltrude is just like my map, everything caulked under the floor main level.
If, as you say, Lighting only affects textured brushes, I don't have to worry!
Anyway I will post a screenshot just for you to see what I talk about.
And by the way, Bjarne, your last post does make sense indeed
Thank you very much for the help.
(But I will post that screenshot anyway LOL)

Stratocaster wrote:If, as you say, Lighting only affects textured brushes, I don't have to worry!

Yes, see it like this:

You have your wall/brush, slapped on there a texture and slapped on top of that your lightmap which is in theory also a texture.

Im not sure exactly what you want, but i take it that you have a floor with corridors underneath it? and these corridors cant be seen from above? If this is the case, here's what I'd do. Making sure all the outer brushes are structural, including the floor, you can close off the corridors with doors and use areaportals to seal off the area until the door is opened.

here is the screenshot, all textures you see are caulk. And all brushes are, of course, structural.

Even though I warned you I think you're using the common/blanklightmap texture instead of common/caulk... they look the same in radiant but definately replace all common/blanklightmap with common/caulk. 'Real' caulk isn't drawn and hence cannot be seen in game.

As for lights you might want to try the 'NO_ENTITIES' spawnflag.. I think that stops the light from dynamically lighting players and hence should fix fps issues... fps-wise it doesn't matter how many shadows there are in your map.

That is caulk isn?t it

screenshot from Radiant at same location

Middle mouse click on the 'caulk' and then press s. You'll see it says common/blanklightmap as the texture name.

Well I am amazed.... All walls come tumbling down as I realize this is NOT Caulk!! How can that be?
When I create the brushes I have caulk texture selected

You will have to explain that to me from the beginning LOL

here are my questions now :

1 - I have my two button mouse, is there a way to do what you say with a 2 mouse button? If so, how?

2 - What does clicking with middle mouse button does?

3 - You mean clicking on the brush or on the texture?

4 - I think I have never seen that blanklightmap texture you talk about. What does it do?

5 - Is there a way to create brushes with (real) caulk? how?

6 - Do I have to redo all my map? I have all my 5000 brushes made of caulk (except for visible sides which are textured)

7 - How do I change that common/blanklightmap for caulk in a brush or single face of a brush?

8 - I am starting to panic about that! Is that normal? I bet I have missed something in a turorial.

9 - Is there a turorial about "watch out : textures shown on Radiant are not what they seem"?

10 - Sorry if I ask too many questions but I am really confused...

thank you very much in advance for your reply.