I have read on these forums and elsewhere that Half-life does perform well on 'open field' maps.

Can someone provide me some tips to make the best that I can of the situation with the desire in creating an 'open field' map?

I have been creating a large open field map that is a large forest on one side and farm on the other with a steep valley/river bottom in the middle. Besides my own personal nightmare due to leaks caused by the complex sides of the topography, my FPS has dropped to sub-sucks level.

Schwetz seemed to perform very well and I never noticed any lag in the river area. That is about the size and scope that I am talking about. Plus I have lots of models of trees. I am too n00b to understand the impact of using models, but my combined elements is only in the 300 element range.

Thanks...

download dod_verdun (i forget what version, doesn't matter any version) and chekc it out. that map tends to run fine for me and personally it's the greatest outdoor map there is!!:D

HL HATES big open areas.

Firstly:
Make sure the terrain is REALLY simple.
Stretch textures (see dod_hill_classic).
Use the "hint" brush (if you know how - I don't!! But it helps if you do).
Reduce the players visible area (with "blocking").

If you look at heutau, you'll see it has really simple geometry.

'make sure terrain is REALLY simple'

oh well, I guess I will start over now as mine is NOT...

Guess I should have asked first...

Thanks...

I have played verdun and it is accurate to what I am trying to do as well minus a ton of topography from me that I guess I will now take out...

Schwetz isn't the type of map you are creating I think, cause central area was rather small and enclosed by tall buildings which blocked increasing r_speeds. If you had crated forest from models this can be real problem (high epolies). Also buildings and tops of hill (inaccessible) should touch the sky brush above. Post r_speeds & e_poly numbers along with screenshots + overview (can be from hammer).

edit: View dod_june11 (i.e. on KustomKettle) to get idea how open map can be done in HL. It has a little high r_speeds (1100) at some points, but general rule of creation is right.

Originally posted by that L do Pig
'make sure terrain is REALLY simple'

oh well, I guess I will start over now as mine is NOT...

Guess I should have asked first...

Thanks...

every one learns stuff in mapping.

so on schwetz the allied side of the river was clipped at the bldgs? that makes sense!

but on the Axis side you could get on top of the apartment and that tower was megatall! do you know how the axis side of the river was clipped off?

So what I am learning here is to segment my map areas in to different skys and not have one big a** sky?

(learning)

Oh and the request about posting my dat. I don't want to waste anyone's time posting images, r_speeds and the like just yet. Let me get my house somewhat in order first. I still have not applied what I have learned here.

Thanks for the offer, I will take you up on it down the road...

but on the Axis side you could get on top of the apartment and that tower was megatall! do you know how the axis side of the river was clipped off?

You switched sides remember, is it the side with the german tank? Either way it was probably just clipped by a sky brush.

On schwetz like on every good city map roof touches sky. It have to be done that way to keep low r_speeds. It doesn't matter if you can go thru building, even on on top of it (like center building). View on further street was always blocked by sky at some point of roof.

This isn't totally accurate. HL can do open maps pretty well, you just have some issues you have to work around like things dissapearing in the distance and making the map look like crap.

If you make a simple yet effective terrain and put in a few nicely placed vis blockers you can make a fairly large and open map that works well. It's all about how much work you are willing to put in to make it happen. Well, that's my experience anyhow.

Monk

Originally posted by that L do Pig
I have read on these forums and elsewhere that Half-life does perform well on 'open field' maps.

Can someone provide me some tips to make the best that I can of the situation with the desire in creating an 'open field' map?

I have been creating a large open field map that is a large forest on one side and farm on the other with a steep valley/river bottom in the middle. Besides my own personal nightmare due to leaks caused by the complex sides of the topography, my FPS has dropped to sub-sucks level.

I have lots of models of trees. I am too n00b to understand the impact of using models, but my combined elements is only in the 300 element range.

Thanks... http://www.slackiller.com/tommy14/rspeeds.htm Some VERY good informations here.

About the tree models: create a small test map with only 1 tree. Compile and find how many eploys this model will add (r_speeds 1 in spectator mode). Say 200. If you add 10 trees, they will add 200*10=2000 eploys in the map. This gives you an idea of the potential limits of your map.