My first CTF map is almost done...Problem some parts of my map are smooth and game play is great... But as I move around my map audio gets choppy and video too this only seems to happen in wide open spots (for example at the end of the street looking at one of my building at the other end of the street) I have some very large 5 - 10 story buildings that are full of rooms and lots of windows how can i get my street scenes to run more smooth? Can a map of this size be done and run smooth or am i just wasting my time on somthing to big?
(size of map in foot steps N/S 300fs E/W 400 fs )
Any help with this map would be awesome!
Cheers
Mike

When you have loaded your map open up the console and type
developer 1 and then r_speeds 1

The w_poly value is the most important part of it and shouldnt go above 1000, preferably bellow 800...

Move around and my guess is that the areas with chopy sound and graphics has higher values...

There are several non working links in the faq how to fix r_speeds but if you search aound this board you might find something about how to fix it..

I am afraid you have become another victim of r_speeds.

If it's almost done, how 'bout showing some pics?

Originally posted by Kehldon
There are several non working links in the faq how to fix r_speeds but if you search aound this board you might find something about how to fix it..
I beg your pardon... They all were working but 1 because snarkpit changed their tutorial format.

Love to show some pics how do i do that?

klick at your post-reply menu and then : Attach file , there you can upload your pic, one per post :D

Originally posted by ender
I beg your pardon... They all were working but 1 because snarkpit changed their tutorial format.

I might have been to quick to judge, Im sorry, all the links in Xerents original post are invalid, I didnt see the ones bellow posted by you, as I was in ahurry..

Here are a few shots

is it to big?

City maps can never be too big, imo. But you NEED to be able to enter a good majority of the buildings for them to work. A city map with out 80% of the buildings being enterable is a waste. Also change the sky box. Other then that, from what I see, it looks like good work. :)

how can i send more than 1 pic at a time?

i beat you have a leak error, thats why your laggy.

make sure you run at least VIS...and RAD as well, but if you're just testing then RAD isn't necessary but is really really recommended for any version you're actually going to release out.

I bet R_speeds are horrible....

Any Ideas would be great...

more trouble

not good

Put atleast 1 light in the map as the sun and run RAD and VIS when you compile. It will look better.

It's not necessarily too big. It's how much the player can see in that area. If there were buildings all throught that area laying out different road paths, the r_speeds would be much better thus it would run more smooth.


Read up on "vis" and "r_speeds" and you will have a better understanding. Check out this http://www.karljones.com/halflife/r_speeds.asp and look for my post on the 1st page in the mapping faq, it has several links for vis and r_speeds.

um... this is a huge problem...... I cant help you with that much reducing!

Your r-speed problem could be a number of things. It looks like you've got too much visible for starters. The HL engine can see too much of the map (even if you cannot) from any one spot so it is drawing all the stuff it sees. Read this tutorila over at Tommy14's site:

http://www.slackiller.com/tommy14/rspeeds.htm

If covers the basics of r_speed reduction.

Can Ia ctually suggest that (horror) you post a shot taken in Hammer? I suspect you haven't vis-blocked well - the tops of the buildings for example - and this would be shown ina Hammer shot.

I'm not sure how to take a shot in hammer but if you tell me how to do it I can do that.
also what shots would help you in helping me?

Cheers
Mike

Originally posted by kubilius
I'm not sure how to take a shot in hammer but if you tell me how to do it I can do that.
also what shots would help you in helping me?

Cheers
Mike

PrintScreen key on your keyboard will take a screenshot of whatever you is on your monitor at the moment and store it in the clip board.

ok here it is don't be to mean!!! lol
Cheers
Mike

I'm looking for where your buildings join the sky (assuming they do). All those building tops should be butted up against the sky - if they are not then the game engine will "see" over the tops of them to areas of the map beyond, essentially letting the game engien see pretty much your wohle map, even when you, the player, cannot.

Gimme a shot of the 3D preview window. From what I can see at the very edge of the pic yopu posted, the tops of those buildings aren't actually touching the sky. That could be the source of your problem.

do not try to use the same texture avery time , cause it makes your map boring ,

and try to scale em

and make some rubble and terrain

and for the sandbags use the env_model entinty and use the sandbag model

You are so right they do not touch the sky I thought that was a bad thing changing them all now!!!!
Cheers
Mike

About half are now touching not all can or i will not get the full effect of the size...

Well that is a large part of your problem. In that shot you posted last, I can see the tops of lots of buildings but as a player (unless in spectator mode) I'll never see those. But they are all adding to w-poly, plus, the "clear" space across the tops of those roofs is ruining any chance you have to block vis. So in essence, your player might be standing in the middlle, and just see the fronts of buildings, but the game engine can see over those buildings, and as a result will draw all the polys.

You need to think about placing your buildings and sky brushes so that the game engine can't see over them, and make sure you have dog-legs at ground level so that the engine doesn't "see" round corners.

I suggest you fire up a map like dod_jagd, go into spectator mode and fly around looking at how the map handles bits where buildings meet the sky.

Also, since they will only ever be seen by spectators, not by "live players" you can apply the null texture to all those roof tops - this stops the compiler creating textured faces for those planes and will will cut down on w-poly quite a bit from what I can see there.

Im sorry to say so but I dont think its possible to fix that map after what I have seen.

My suggestion is that you build a small working map, fool around with and test r_speed reduction methods and get to learn the basics of smart leveldesign to fool the hl-engine.

Then you can return to your huge, detailed map and reconsider your r_speed problems, find you out what you can do or dont with it.

And dont feel bad about it as is, it looks really good and we have all done those errors when we started mapping... but there arent no easy way to learn how to map in hl :(

First tip is dont think about what you can se from the eyes of the player, think what an helicopter can, hoovering up in the sky above him. Thats how the engine will draw it if you dont use hint brushes...

Second tip, always think small areas, lots of them if you plan a larger map. And you shouldnt be able to see more then one or two at once...

Third tip. Build layout and test the r_speeds as soon as possible. Its pain in the *** to have to remove/change all those small details just because your r_speeds are to high...

my 30 second assessment based on your screenshots:
[list=1]
r_speeds are probably horrible all over.
very very boxy with little interesting architecture
poor texture choice
default background sky...gah!
[/list=1]

no worries. you're still learning. looks more interesting than my first mapping attempt. like i tell all new people: keep working on mapping, you will get better.

things to emphasize (hopefully you've heard all these before):
[list=1]
fly around the official maps and good custom maps in spectator mode. really examine the architecture and texture choice.
practice new things in "play maps" that you don't intend on releasing.
listen to the advice of the people responding in this thread.
[/list=1]

Like Kehldon said this map is not gonna work good in any case.
1) If you want open areas they have to be connected by really narrow/small 'portals'
2) You can't make separate buildings and situation when you can look along long street.
3) Every building have to touch the sky (or sky have to "fall" to meet roof of that building. There may be some places when you can ignore this but I don't recommend this for non-experienced.

Learn how HL engine works, like any quake-based, general rules are identical - Rooms (bigger) connected by corridors (smaller). For city map you will put building textures on walls, but every map have to work this way.
I advice to make very general (boxy) layout of map using this technique, then proceed to add details if r_speeds are low enough. Don't start from making very detailed one part of map cause you will get into optimization troubles in other areas.

Thanks for all the information and help - It is hard to just give up on this map! - I thought it was going to be do-able - I can see this mapping stuff is not an easy task - I will work on some of the ideas that you all gave me and go for it again. - Also looking for some tuts on adding sandbags - trees - plants - trucks - tanks to a map can you recomend some good sites for this I have found some but they just state where they are located on the hd need to know how to place them in a map.
Cheers
Mike

An exellent place to begin might be http://www.mardymouse.co.uk/index.php

Placing models in you map is quiet easy, there is a entity called env_model which will do the job for you :)

you should scale your textures, because there are buildings with , windows cut in the middle and the most of the buildings are only blocks, what about roofs?

By the way, the r_speeds are 100 times to high ;) no chance, try to built it a way smaller!

While it's true that you might never be able to make this a "viable" map in the sense of getting r_speeds down to an acceptable level, I actually think you'd be well advised to go through the exercise of trying to fix the r_speeds using techniques mentioned here and in tutorials. You've managed to create a "worst case scenario" for yourself, so it would be a real good leraning exercise to apply the various r_speed reduction techniques to see how far you can fix it. A the very least you'll know all about r_speed control after that, a skill hard won and very usuful to posess. And that means when you start you next map you'll be thinking about r_speeds from the get go and know what to avoid.

There are solutions which could worke here. If you would move some buildings to block completely view farther (something line chessboard), but anyway this map will always will look blocky, uninteresting and unnatural (for DoD map, it "could" work for CS). fixing this would be hard job, better plan carefully first and make new map.