Speeding up

[jreister]

Many times there are many ways to do the same thing in the editor. My question is, what to use and what not to use in order to speed a level up. For example is it good to use the 2-D-editor often or does it slow down things. What about the Cut-function (dunno the exact name). Any tips and tricks welcome

Sometimes there are terrible slow levels which don´t look that high poly. I want to avoid this

 

[bobtheking]

i think you are talking about level construction, ways to speed up the result:

-use fewest brushes possible(not sure about this). if you have an object with a few brushes, move it out in the middle of nowhere, put a brush around it and intersect. This will make it one brush

-you can use the 2D shape editor, but you will notice the ends of the extruded brush/revovled brush have a lot of wasted polys in them. Add/Subtract the brush, select the polys on the end of the brush, and set the same texture and do align->align to wall or floor/ceiling. Then polygons->merge on the brush and rebuild.

-some people claim that semi/non solids improve poly/node count, but i noticed it increased in my level, so i am not sure about this.

-the cut function, i think you mean intersect/deintersect, they can help prevent bsp holes, but i am not sure about performance.

As for non-geometry ways to improve performance, use as few dynamic lights as possible, keep meshes(wepons, ammo, pickups...) in low poly areas and inside in outdoor levels.

 

[StoneViper]

Originally posted by bobtheking

-use fewest brushes possible(not sure about this).

yes, and try to build very simple brushes. if you have one complex brush, sometimes it is good to make it two simple ones instead.

Originally posted by bobtheking

-some people claim that semi/non solids improve poly/node count, but i noticed it increased in my level, so i am not sure about this.

they work only if you use the right way. Semisolids are misunderstood my many.

the 2d editor is something i rarely use anymore. i have build whole maps without the use of this feature. Use it only to build the brushes you can't do with the "building brush" buttons (since those brushes are the simplest brushes you can make). Rounding tunnels can only be made in the 2d editor for example, and by themselves are actually simple brushes.

for practice, take a looksee in ued for maps of good fps, and maps of bad fps, and compare the design of the levels.

 

[Bot_40]

I find you can do 90% of all brush shapes with vertex edited cubes. (Only use tessalated if you HAVE to!). For example, you can make a simple 8 sided cylinder out of 3 cubes which has several advantages.
It is good for the BSP, all the vertecies will be on the grid 'junctions' so you will get less bsp errors
All the lines of the brush will be good lengths so you can align them with other brushes easily
You can even make spiral staircases out of cubes if you really wanted to!

 

[StoneViper]

Originally posted by Bot_40
You can even make spiral staircases out of cubes if you really wanted to!

like in my map CTF-SpiritualWorlds. If you can fix my banner in my siggy, you can use it to link to my page to download it