I'm trying to reduce the r_speeds on my map and i've heard a lot of ways to do this, but which ones are the best and in which situations do they apply?

some ones i've heard of are making brushes only touch on edges where possible, and reducing the distance you can see in any given area, but what other ones are there, and most importantly where should i use them in a map? or if it's a tricky thing (like making a 256x256 texture and scaling it to 240) what methods can you use to do this?

thanks in advance :)

essentially every (visible) face of every brush is 1 poly
faces with the null texture dont count
two solids that touch will "break up" the opposing face into more polys, (if u put a 6 sided post right on a flat square of ground, it will break the flat face into many little triangles, each being a poly)
keep these things in mind when constructing the first time, so you dont have to go back and REDUCE later
"sky" is your biggest friend- you want each area of your map to have its own top and sides (DO NOT build a whole map and then put a huge skybox around it)
Its more complicated than that but i'll assume you have some knowledge of basic mapping, if you already have a complete map and just want to knock the numbers down in a few spots, there are a few ways to go about it
for example:
-make sure all faces that wont be seen while playing are textured with the null texture
-make sure all brush-based entities (func_illusionarys etc) are in one area only and dont stretch between "rooms"
-also check that brush-based entities do NOT protrude into a solid brush as this will stop that solid from blocking vis (the exceptions are non-rendered brushes like capareas and triggers)
-if there is a small spot where the numbers go thru the roof, put a crate/house/truck/whatever there so the player cant go there, as long as its a solid
-hint- sometimes you can reduce numbers by adding more brushes in key vis-blocking spots

thats all that comes to mind right now, good luck

thanks for the help, that would certainly explain the lag in the river area (a lot of brushes touching eachother on the faces)

Does the face thing apply to func_illusionaries touching world brushes too?

i'm new to mapping though and although i've got my map ready to add stuff like a skybox i'm not really sure how that works... i can't seem to find any sky textures in any dod wads to look at for an example either. i'll try looking it up on a tutorial.

World brushes and entity brushes are breaking brushes from their own "family".

Overall the ways to get low r_speeds are :
1) smallest possible 'portals' between two areas (like door, gate, small corridor, ...)
2) No big areas (eventually ones with lower details only).
3) No far seeing (use bended corridors, don't create long straight streets, ...).

These are simplest long-known things but still works best.

alrighty then, i may have pinpointed my problem then, the central area is just too open. fortunately that's a very easy fix as it's pretty simple to squish together. thanks for the help :)

Hey Orb,

http://www.geocities.com/pdrourk/VoodooChilds_Simple_Vis_Tutorial.html

This is a simple tutorial I did for newbs such as you. It assumes of course you know what a skybrush is.

Any q's or comments, PM me, or email

pdrourk@yahoo.com

VoodooChild

thank you good sir.

i can't figure out how to change which sky box it uses, blarney. currently i get one that looks like a regular HL skybox (black mesa). i've looked at the tutorials here but i can't find anything to solve this (i've seen something about choosing a file in dod/gfx/env but i don't know WHERE to choose it/apply it)

can you help?

in valve hammer editor go to

map-
map properties
environment map (skyname) _________

the files are kept in

dod/gfx/env

if you have wally you can browse these files to preview the skyboxes (each has 6 pictures)

they are named like

rainup.tga
rainlf.tga
rainrt.tga
etc

if this was the sky you wanted you would put

rain

in the skyname option

alright so if i made one and called it rivermoonup, would i need a rivermoondn, rivermoonrt, etc. or just rivermoonup. i did that and put rivermoon as the name of the sky but for some reason it still shows the 'black mesa outside' skybox. do i need the other 5?

Orb,

You will need all the sides in order to make it correctly work.

When you have them, name the map/sky name Rivermoon, act as if it were case sensitive.

alrighty then, thanks.

they're pretty hard to make, just use one in the dod folder

put the name of the sky, so if it's killertomatodn.tga, killertomatoup.tga, killertomatort.tga etc etc

you would just put in killertomato

Originally posted by greenhorn

-also check that brush-based entities do NOT protrude into a solid brush as this will stop that solid from blocking vis (the exceptions are non-rendered brushes like capareas and triggers)

Do you mean when a brush cuts into a brush based entity or visa versa? If so, does this do with water and func_illusionaries?

you can have an illusionary inside a func_water if thats what you mean, as neither blocks vis. Its when your illusionary goes even 1 pixel into a solid, then that solid no longer blocks vis. Sometimes a func_illusionary that is partly covered by a solid, will be "broken" into more faces, as part of it will be shaded.
am i making any sense??

and when a func_water cuts a solid?

I think he means that like a sky box, you shouldnt have a 'water box' another words, if you have a pillar supporting a bridge over water (naturally the 1st brush i could think of that would jut through ur water), build the water brushes around it, dont just slap a square of it in.

Is that it?

I dunno but in a beach map for example you need to do some good cutting to not make all the water cut the sides. I was just wondering if a func_water touches a solid or goes into a solid would it disable the ability from the solid to block vis?

any brush-based entites (besides capareas + triggers) that protrudes into a solid will stop that solid from blocking vis. Just make sure that THAT piece is not essential for blocking.
ie : the post supporting the bridge is not blocking much so go ahead and make a big square of water and stick it right thru

but if it's a cliff that should block I'm in deep sh*t right? Damn, why did I never heard of that before :confused:

just make sure that the piece of cliff thats jammed into the water has other solids around it, then it will not see beyond. In cabinfever there are 3 func_waters, all jammed through 'rocks', but those are sealed off from the rest of the map, inside a little cave of solids