aM>AAN cool:

heh heh

wintersforge > Zoner91

Oy, no derailing you two biggrin:

Sorry. biggrin:

</thread hijack>

Here are some pics of a few alterations I had to use to improve the performance. This doesn't show the dozens of minor brush changes and repositionings but it shows how the performance is and how the structures are now.

First up, 4 shots from the centre of the map, the bridge. In the bottom right corner of all these pics is an overview with the POV highlighted in green.

Note that I have also included the FPS counter in the bottom left.

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image2.jpg

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image3.jpg

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image4.jpg

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image5.jpg

Opposite ends of the bridge:

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image6.jpg

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image7.jpg

Next up is a view of the Library with the new walls surrounding it. Note the FPS is 30 here, as low as it gets on my machine. This will dip below 20 on lower end machines but it's pretty much isolated to this particular area (more on that later).

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image8.jpg

This pic shows the higher walls much clearer and a nice 70+ FPS to go with it:

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image9.jpg

The above image is mostly down to the interior of the Library being dedesigned to enable better vising (so the inside of the library is only drawn for players inside it, for whom none of the outside will be drawn). The higher walls were included in an effort to section this area of the map from the rest of it. I may be able to reduce these walls a little (I'll test this tonight).

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image10.jpg

Other side of the library.

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image11.jpg

The above shot suffered low FPS before this revamp, even when fully compiled. Now it runs at a decent 45 FPS. Again, I am showing you worst case scanarios in these long shots.

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image13.jpg

Above is an example of a best case scanario... This area was horribly slow before I revamped it. Now it runs over 80 FPS. The whole garden runs much smoother now thanks to 2 simple walls (seen middle shot). Before, you could see clear to the car park (South West corner of map).

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image14.jpg

This is the old wine room. Removed the wine casks (Static models cause horrid FPS lag - I decided a while ago to not use many models in this map - They may look good but I prefer a playable map to a model-clogged one). The crucial part of this room is the 2 wall partitions (right and left). From this angle they conceal the door and window. If you look on the bottom right at the over-view you can see this room is quite centrally located. Effectively it failed to prevent Line Of Sight (LOS) from all angles around it. These two walls shut off a lot of that LOS. This rooms runs uber fast now, except when you go to the window (where it still runs well).

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image15.jpg

I'm not 100% sure this addition makes a lot of difference (The next shot shows why). I may remove it. Effectively I wanted to block LOS from the Park to the Town Hall but I don't think it does that. What it does do though is block LOS from the North edge of the map to the South.

Reason I added this is because below and behind the camera is a door and middle shot behind the wall is a window. You can't see the window. That's what the wall's supposed to do biggrin: It works. This room is uber fast, now.

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image16.jpg

This pic is a case of where VIS isn't working too well still. The problem here is, although I've effectively blocked LOS through the Pub and Restaurant (last pic) from here to the Town hall, this show clearly shows LOS to the Town Hall. Sadly this means this area will be laggy for most players (as I mentioned above, in the pic taken from this spot looking at the Library).

This is actually the worst spot in the whole map. I could break it up some and add some walls and increase FPS somewhat. I'd probably have to cut out the road on both sides of thr Pub.

I may do this as a test. With a little artistic hacking of structures I could still make this area flow gameplay-wise.

It'll reduce sniping a lot, though.

Last pic:

http://www.btinternet.com/~ydisss/Debug/Image17.jpg

An example of what I did to acheive this result. No more windows. I will add detailed windows to make it look more like a town hall but they won't be windows you can stand at and shoot through.

Before the revamp this front face had tons of LOS leaks in it. This allows you to see all the way into the gardens to the rear and caused bad performance (and also linked all the portals -- areas of VIS data -- so the compiling process took ages). Now, this front face is one solid LOS blocker (behind the door is another partition - doors leak LOS like windows).

That's it! Aside from a few more walls and touches that's what I had to do to get this map to work.

Now, back to work for me. I'll be touching up the details you've seen and hopefully reworking the lights.

After that's done...

Test time.

Thanks for your patience biggrin:

this map is lookin' gooood biggrin:

add some fog or haze something

Tried this a while ago, makes very little difference to the over-all performance and just makes the map look naff.

It's all looking good so far... Lights all done. Incidentally, due to a critical error yesterday this topic doesn't seem to be working properly oOo:

Posts seem to have dissapeared.

I'll probably post a new topic later.

Never mind on that last bit... I can see the 4th page now.....

It sounds great. Let me know when it is ready, I will see if I cant get it into the rotation on our server. I am looking forward to it.

Made quite a big structural alteration last night, one that isn't included in the original plan. I'll post a pic of it later on.

The building is a gate-house (roughly similar to the bit in the Sniper's Last Stand SP map in MoH:AA where you have to blow the gate down with the Bazooka).

The building arches across the road and the road is blocked by the gate. In order to get past you have to go inside the building and out the other side on the balcony.

This area will be where the Allies will spawn in Objective mode. Under the arch will be a tank (possibly a Tiger they have liberated). This will be the Axis target. When you see a screenshot of it later I hope you'll appreciate the tactical positioning. It's really just to make the position more defendable but also to make it more approachable and not so open on all sides.

I'll release the DM map for testing tomorrow(!). I'll post a link in a new topic and I want everyone who is going to host it to post their server details for everyone to use, please.

I'll give the map a week of testing at the most and take as much feedback as I can. During this week I'll script the Objective version.

One more question... Are there any people here who own or have access to a dedicated European server?

I'd really like to try my own map out with a semi decent ping biggrin:

Compiling the test version now- Will be ready in approximately 6 hours, once I've scripted and finished the package (unless there is something drastically wrong with the compile).

Looks great man.

Hey, how did you manage to get the sizes all right?

I usually end up resizing a whole building, after I test it. Even in editor, using the green man sized block as a reference, I still make stuff too small.
And too big is ugly.

Experience and trial/error. When I first created a few brushes for my first ever MOH map I realised it was all tiny.

Now I have a good idea what scale things are.

Even now I still have to resize some things to get it just right.

Once you have things in your map for reference then it gets easier to map larger areas without needing to test it for size.

In this map, for instance, I made pretty much all of the buildings to the same size (height-wise). First floor was so many units high, second floor so many more etc.

This way I rarely have issues with connectivity and messy mapping and I don't have to compile the map everytime I create a wall.

By the way... a good piece of advice for testing: Forget fast vis and fast light for compiling test maps. What I do is create the enclosing sky box (stopping any leaks) and then when I don't want to fully compile a map I just move one of the sky brushes so a deliberate leak is created.

This ensures VIS and Radiosity is ignored and compiles your map in the fastest possible time.

Oh, and to let you know what's happening with the test map: I went out with my girlfriend today and left the compiler running but it froze at 80% VIS. I think this is because I clicked on the MSDOS prompt screen (oops) which seems to have caused it to crash.

I've restarted a new compile so the map release time will be in around 4-5 hours (max). I'm going to create the scripting for it now.

Hey Ydiss just wanted to let you know that Crossfire Village Retalliation OBJ is in our regular OBJ rotation on the AllAboutNothing.net server.

Great job! Please let us know if you have any updates.

Cool, Nomar. Thanks.

That is just the test version, however. I have finished the final OBJ and TDM versions. There should be no more updates after that.

I tried to send them to be posted on this site but the email (mods@alliedassault.com) doesn't exist???

I'm going to PM Noctis/Rude/Guarnere/Ktog3 with the finished versions now.

sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! Would kill to see it as OBJ!!!