Played your map DM-INF-Kosovo (online), and I really like it - excellent atmosphere and gameplay. I opened the map up in UnrealEd, though, I noticed a few things you might be interested in These suggestions should help you increase the framerate and look even more, and are easy and quick to do - you could do em in time for a 2.86 patch for example (btw, I'm lead designer, and mapper for the mod Thievery UT, and we've done extensive research on how to push the ut engine to it's limits.
1) None of your brushes are semi-solid.. why?? You should immediately put all smaller buildings, crates, lampposts, carts, and walls semi-solid, and probably most of the bigger buildings too, as they're intersected brushes. In case you don't know; semi-solid brushes don't cut the geometry, so don't create extra nodes, which *speeds up* your map. The only occasion you shouldn't use them is when you're subtracting from them or if they are touching non-solid brushes. If this happens, you get weird collision/BSP errors, but the cause is usually very obvious. I CAN'T EMPHASISE ENOUGH the importance of making as much stuff as possible semi-solid
2) The lampposts - they look cool, and cast even cooler shadows, but I'd save polys by asking an inf modeler to make them as meshes instead of world polys - they're right out in the open.. Also, delete a cart or two that can be seen out in the open, theres too many of them about imo.
3) Little houses - some of the smaller houses look like they're repeated prefabs (which they are). Why not set a few more of them (2-4) that they're relatively undamaged, this would help occlusion and polycount in some areas, and give a little more variety Or have a couple of smaller houses virtually completely flattened (this might be even better..)
4) Pathnoding - you might want to redo your nodes with this tool : www.planetunreal.com/fordy/pathlogic.htm
5) Hills - you can't see outside the walls to the little "hills" - so why not just take em away and replace the outside with a skybox by adding brushes around the perimeter (just behind the perimeter walls, as high as possible) and setting them to fake backdrop, etc? I notieced you use TerraEdit to create the terrain, and that can get pretty slow..
6) Skybox - it looks a little plain.. here's a suggestion - ask an inf texture artist to make a 256*256 star texture (alternatively I can email you), and replace the clouds with another 256*256 texture instead of the 128*128, as they tend to look repeated. Another thing to do would be to slow down the rate of movement of the clouds a bit. (In Zoneinfo>Zonelight I think) Also, the moon is an alien one
7) River - the river texture isn't very good imo, looks ut slimeish. Also, add a WaterZone (subclass of zoneinfo) instead of the normal ZoneInfo you have there, as the viewflashing and stuff isn't set right. You could also put some seaweed decoration on the riverbed, and bump up it's ambient light so it's not black underwater.
8) Shadows - excellent lighting in this map, but I suggest setting the ground textures at least to High Shadow Detail, as they're sized up already, which reduces it automatically. High shadow detail doesn't really performance either unless you're using a lot of dynamic lights Ambient lighting btw, is imo a teeny bit too high - I'd set it to 13 instead of 15..
9) Detail - Some of the larger houses are intact. Why not choose 2 (on either side of the river) that are more decorated than the rest (rooms, furniture, crates, etc) that are supposed to be "command houses"? You could add sheets of decorative masked textures like cobwebs, undergrowth, there too, for example. It would add to the variety of the map, and as they'd be inside, wouldn't affect the framerate.
10) Zones - Speaking of large houses, the large undamaged houses can be zoned off. Remember to put the zone portals in the middle or not touching the movers though. It looks like you've tried this, actually, but it hasn't worked - double check the placing and properties of the sheets.
That's all - I'll email you with a link to my edited ver of kosovo with a few of those improvements made..
1) None of your brushes are semi-solid.. why?? You should immediately put all smaller buildings, crates, lampposts, carts, and walls semi-solid, and probably most of the bigger buildings too, as they're intersected brushes. In case you don't know; semi-solid brushes don't cut the geometry, so don't create extra nodes, which *speeds up* your map. The only occasion you shouldn't use them is when you're subtracting from them or if they are touching non-solid brushes. If this happens, you get weird collision/BSP errors, but the cause is usually very obvious. I CAN'T EMPHASISE ENOUGH the importance of making as much stuff as possible semi-solid
2) The lampposts - they look cool, and cast even cooler shadows, but I'd save polys by asking an inf modeler to make them as meshes instead of world polys - they're right out in the open.. Also, delete a cart or two that can be seen out in the open, theres too many of them about imo.
3) Little houses - some of the smaller houses look like they're repeated prefabs (which they are). Why not set a few more of them (2-4) that they're relatively undamaged, this would help occlusion and polycount in some areas, and give a little more variety Or have a couple of smaller houses virtually completely flattened (this might be even better..)
4) Pathnoding - you might want to redo your nodes with this tool : www.planetunreal.com/fordy/pathlogic.htm
5) Hills - you can't see outside the walls to the little "hills" - so why not just take em away and replace the outside with a skybox by adding brushes around the perimeter (just behind the perimeter walls, as high as possible) and setting them to fake backdrop, etc? I notieced you use TerraEdit to create the terrain, and that can get pretty slow..
6) Skybox - it looks a little plain.. here's a suggestion - ask an inf texture artist to make a 256*256 star texture (alternatively I can email you), and replace the clouds with another 256*256 texture instead of the 128*128, as they tend to look repeated. Another thing to do would be to slow down the rate of movement of the clouds a bit. (In Zoneinfo>Zonelight I think) Also, the moon is an alien one
7) River - the river texture isn't very good imo, looks ut slimeish. Also, add a WaterZone (subclass of zoneinfo) instead of the normal ZoneInfo you have there, as the viewflashing and stuff isn't set right. You could also put some seaweed decoration on the riverbed, and bump up it's ambient light so it's not black underwater.
8) Shadows - excellent lighting in this map, but I suggest setting the ground textures at least to High Shadow Detail, as they're sized up already, which reduces it automatically. High shadow detail doesn't really performance either unless you're using a lot of dynamic lights Ambient lighting btw, is imo a teeny bit too high - I'd set it to 13 instead of 15..
9) Detail - Some of the larger houses are intact. Why not choose 2 (on either side of the river) that are more decorated than the rest (rooms, furniture, crates, etc) that are supposed to be "command houses"? You could add sheets of decorative masked textures like cobwebs, undergrowth, there too, for example. It would add to the variety of the map, and as they'd be inside, wouldn't affect the framerate.
10) Zones - Speaking of large houses, the large undamaged houses can be zoned off. Remember to put the zone portals in the middle or not touching the movers though. It looks like you've tried this, actually, but it hasn't worked - double check the placing and properties of the sheets.
That's all - I'll email you with a link to my edited ver of kosovo with a few of those improvements made..