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Author Topic: Step on Brushes  (Read 5167 times)

Wanderer

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Step on Brushes
« on: June 07, 2007, 11:05:26 pm »
NARF.  Stupid brushes.  They hate me. :)

Alright, here's the deal.  I've got a basement stairway that I think I fixed (I haven't redone the 30 minute compile again yet), but my fire escape and center stairways are still not working properly.

The fire escape works just fine to the first platform... then my guys toss themselves *through* the steps to the ground instead of going up the next 'step on'.  Similar problem with the central main stairway.  They go up the first section of stairs, onto the landing.  They won't proceed up to the second floor.

.map file (and compiled bsp) is available at http://rapidshare.com/users/9UPYQE

Offline Mattn

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Step on Brushes
« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2007, 07:52:41 am »
if you have nothing against it, please use the updated version that i've uploaded to http://mattn.ninex.info/maps

i redruced the brushcount, fixed some texture alignments, fixed some clipping and so on.

Offline Mattn

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Step on Brushes
« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2007, 07:55:58 am »
btw. for your testcompiles - you shouldn't use the extra parameter - this speeds up compilation to ~1min at my 3200+

you still have 2609 brushes in this map - try to redruce even more please

i'm still getting the hunk alloc overflow when trying to load your map

i've also uploaded screenshots of your map to the above given location:
ufo05.jpp: use another ground texture please - doesn't look good imo (or change the scaling)
ufo06.jpg: way too bright imo - lower the light power
ufo07.jpg: shadow of the stair rail = >move the light a little bit up - oterwise it looks not as good imo (shorten the shadow)
ufo08.jpg (and other stairs, too) - please remove every second rail - this is flickering while rotating the maps when zoomed out - because the rails are too small brushes for a bigger distance
ufo09.jpg: outside looks a little bit nothing-saying - increase the scale of the grass texture and add some trees

Wanderer

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Step on Brushes
« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2007, 10:09:42 pm »
Quote from: "Mattn"
if you have nothing against it, please use the updated version that i've uploaded to http://mattn.ninex.info/maps

i redruced the brushcount, fixed some texture alignments, fixed some clipping and so on.


My most significant concern with using a map you've 'fixed' is that I don't know what I did wrong, therefore, I will continue making similar mistakes.  I will work from this copy and attempt to locate the changes, however.

[EDIT:  Well, there's a big one, I didn't actorclip all the models, like the lockers in the basement.  I also added some to the balcony railings as my actors were able to walk through them, which I didn't want.

Removing every other railing seems to look fine, and dropped about 80-100 brushes out (I missed a railing area so a few extra got involved).]

Quote from: "Mattn"
btw. for your testcompiles - you shouldn't use the extra parameter - this speeds up compilation to ~1min at my 3200+

you still have 2609 brushes in this map - try to redruce even more please

i'm still getting the hunk alloc overflow when trying to load your map


Strange, I do not.  Did it work prior to your modifications?

Quote from: "Mattn"
ufo05.jpp: use another ground texture please - doesn't look good imo (or change the scaling)

No problem, easy enough.  I'm really not worried about the astetics yet until I can get the functional issues corrected, like stairways not working.

Quote from: "Mattn"
ufo06.jpg: way too bright imo - lower the light power

Sure.

Quote from: "Mattn"
ufo07.jpg: shadow of the stair rail = >move the light a little bit up - oterwise it looks not as good imo (shorten the shadow)

Difference of opinion here, I really liked that visual display.  I'll play around with it some and see if we can find an agreeable look.

Quote from: "Mattn"
ufo08.jpg (and other stairs, too) - please remove every second rail - this is flickering while rotating the maps when zoomed out - because the rails are too small brushes for a bigger distance


Odd that you could see this problem and get the memory hunk error you described above.  I did not witness this problem, so my guess is it has to do with differences in the systems.  Since it needs to work everywhere, this shouldn't be a problem to do.

Quote from: "Mattn"
ufo09.jpg: outside looks a little bit nothing-saying - increase the scale of the grass texture and add some trees


I wasn't going to add brushes (or models, like trees) until I could get the map working without them.

A couple of things...

I realize the # of brushes is a concern to you.  Tear out 100 brushes, get a 50kb difference (IE: Gut the first floor bathroom).  Tear out 2, and get a 200 kb difference (the floor in the dining area is one of these).  It's not just the # of brushes, but their positioning and light effects.  After a certain point of removing brushes, I need to start over and completely redesign the internal astetics of the map, such as making it like the Enterprise and noone gets a bathroom, and redesigning the storage room to have no supplies in it. :)  That and redesign the foyer so it doesn't have a grand staircase.  The majority of brushes in the map are the 'little things', that make it believable, and the staircase and balcony rails.

[EDIT: Every bathroom with sink, tp, toilet, and bathtub adds 40 brushes alone for those objects.  At 14 bathrooms, this is ~500 brushes.

Edit2: Those railings apparently played havoc with the lighting.  3 megs or so reduction for simply half the railings and reducing the center light.  It's back to around 12k, with the new actorclips and extra railing inclusions on the second floor.)

This map is far from considered complete, however, what I'm trying to get functional at this time is simply the step on flags (and figure out what i'm apparently doing wrong with the ActorClips to control them).  It's easier to see what can work in the map, and what is 'excess and removable', by seeing it from an ingame player perspective.  To do that, I need to get it functional.

Wanderer

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Step on Brushes
« Reply #4 on: June 09, 2007, 03:25:28 am »
Finally... Found the breaks in the stairway usage.  Apparently, the stepon can't handle a long distance or a break from the level location, and therefore needs an actorclip brush to carry it.  Lovely.

For anyone else running into a similar problem, you have to drag an actorclip across from the 'flat portion' under the stairway to give the stepon a location to work from that's too small (as far as I can tell) to fit the model, so up they go.

Time to work on astetics.

Offline Mattn

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« Reply #5 on: June 09, 2007, 08:02:13 am »
to be honest i don't even know whether ufo2map still supports hint brushes - but you can give it a try - see http://www.gamedesign.net/node/52 for more details

Wanderer

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Step on Brushes
« Reply #6 on: June 09, 2007, 09:02:14 pm »
Quote from: "Mattn"
to be honest i don't even know whether ufo2map still supports hint brushes - but you can give it a try - see http://www.gamedesign.net/node/52 for more details


.... Why would I want to use a hint brush?  We don't draw the map based on triangles or line of sight... You've completely and utterly confused me.