[Released rv1.1] Dragoon Caverns

[J-M v2.5.5]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

The rule of thumb is: Don't copy anything from the_wall, at all.
There's some lighting tips in this thread by Thothie which might be useful.

 

[Thothie]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

Good points.. I'll see what I can do about the torches.. maybe do a model cycler instead, using a torch model kinda like houw the wall was done?

There's six torches and two candles on The_Wall total. They're models, which is just as bad, but you've got a pair of sprites every 10 feet or so amongst most of your map. The rest of the lightning on The_Wall is handled by lighted textures (which is usually the way to go).

The entity count on The_Wall is pretty low, actually, so I'm not entirely sure what makes it so unstable - in that map's case, I would guess, it's a combination of the spell-flinging scripts and the fact that it's up against (dare I say it?) the wall in every respect, so far as other resources are concerned (textures, clipnodes, leafenodes, light data, all way over the top - requiring crazy compile parameters - not something you have to worry about on dragooncaves.) There's also a fairly wide range of monsters, and each of those is adding to the model count, which in turn subtracts from the available edicts.

Mind you, none of that is the original author's fault. I just got way carried away making that underground path back to the top (everything past the Cold One, is Thothie being angry that he doesn't get to map). I'm fiddling with the idea of splitting the map in half at that point, although there's some tricky bits involved.

I shoulda said something about Dragoon caves sprite madness earlier (though it seems no matter how many times I say "sprites bad!" no one listens to me), but Catacombs was being fairly stable considering the number of sprites it has on it - however, it's instability was apparently only being masked by the -num_edicts flag, which again, we can't seem to use safely anymore.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

but Catacombs was being fairly stable

rofl

 

[Thothie]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

Never crashed the ten or so times I played it on-line. Kicked people occasionally... and did the occasional glitchy thing (including the old text bug), but no crashie. :\ I suspect it crashes like mad now that there's no edicts adjustment though.

If I was to rape dragooncaves myself (as I'll probably wind up doing), I'd probably keep the light entities and replace all the torches with framed glowing skull textures (think we have one that looks like it could be a light). That'd allow stripping of the sprite entities without adding much wpoly and without fsking with the lighting. Plus it'd save the dragoon mages all that effort of running around with fireballs lighting all the torches every few hours.

The variety of lighting in Catacombs is going to make it harder to fix without aesthetic impact though.

 

[jon50559]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

If you use SHLT to compile, then you can maybe use this:

"-Added a new point entity, phlt_copy_brush, which allows to change its classname to any you want upon map compilation, e.g. func_wall, and then take the model/appearance of an existing unique brush entity by targetname. With this, you can, for example, make many clones of some prefab you are using a lot, without furtherly approaching map limits."

Keep in mind though, there are limitations:

"-Also, note that the copies will look exactly as the original, including its lighting and decals placed on it, no matter whether from map start or while the map is running (bullet holes, sprays, blood, etc.), and that the copies cannot emit texturelights."
All quotes taken directly from the author's release thread.

Might be a bit off-topic, but it's worth looking into I think, of course not for ents, but complex brushes that are used fairly often in a map.

 

[Thothie]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

I'm not entirely sure how exactly that saves on resources - if it's something that thinks, like an animated wall, or a sprite, the duplicate has to think as well - one would think. Each duplicate would have to have its own instance, entity, and edict set :\

In this case, I was thinking the skull frames would be solids, so they wouldn't add entities - and SHLT should strip static light entities, so they shouldn't be an issue - just adding to the lightmap data, as they already do. I don't *think* his torch lights flicker - that'd be another issue if they do. (Though it would explain why the light phase takes as long as it does... Everything else is over in less than a minute, then HLRAD goes on for like 10 more.)

 

[jon50559]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

I *think* that each copy of the func_wall(or whatever it may be) is a sort of 'projection' so it's technically only one ent, and this is further supported by what the developers said. "Note that the copies will look exactly as the original, including its lighting and decals placed on it, no matter whether from map start or while the map is running."

But this is also a bit confusing, are they all always rendered? I wouldn't think so, but I wonder how they rigged that up.

I might need to make some test maps using this.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

I don't *think* his torch lights flicker - that'd be another issue if they do. (Though it would explain why the light phase takes as long as it does... Everything else is over in less than a minute, then HLRAD goes on for like 10 more.)

I guess you never saw the seizure room in catacombs...?

Right after the fire djinn, you fight a hollow one in a room with a flickering light. It doesn't flicker a bit but it flickers wildly. I would not even frown if I heard that someone got a seizure from playing catacombs. I still need to punch Cat in the face for making that room.

 

[Thothie]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

I don't *think* his torch lights flicker - that'd be another issue if they do. (Though it would explain why the light phase takes as long as it does... Everything else is over in less than a minute, then HLRAD goes on for like 10 more.)

I guess you never saw the seizure room in catacombs...?

Right after the fire djinn, you fight a hollow one in a room with a flickering light. It doesn't flicker a bit but it flickers wildly. I would not even frown if I heard that someone got a seizure from playing catacombs. I still need to punch Cat in the face for making that room.

I meant Furion's torches - I'm quite aware of how much Cat hates Japanese folk.

 

[Thothie]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

Wow... I did not realize this... But there are 196 sprites on this map! >< (188 env_sprites +8 env_glows) I shoulda caught this sooner, as I dun think this would be stable regardless of the edict adjustment flag used. :\

But... I've managed to strip it from 196 sprites, to 4 sprites, plus four animated func_illusionaries. I've managed to do this with minimum impact to aesthetics (hopefully actually improved the aesthetics here and there... Although I still think the skull plaques I came up with are a bit much...)

I'll send Furion up a copy for approval.

 

[FER]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

I played this this 3 players a bunch of times and hopefully I never crashed yet

 

[Thothie]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

What black magic are you using? :\

Not manage to get very far through it myself, when on FN, but I've not been on with less than three players.

It is, however, the #1 killer of RKS servers at the moment. Been tracking which maps servers were on when they come back up from their coma, and about 80% of the time, it's been Dragooncaves.

 

[cartman-2000]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

dragooncaves is the worse map for crashing servers in the current patch, it's also one of the only maps I've found so far that has a major problem with the num_edicts flag, I can run with a num_edicts of 1500 on pretty much all the other maps except this one, it crashes instantly when someone connects to dragooncaves with that set. The max players setting on the server will also determine whether or not it will run, it'll run with a max players set to 8, with 3 max connected players being completely stable, 4 with a chance of getting that no free edicts error, but if you bump the max player count higher it'll most likely crash on connect.

 

[furion001]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

It is, however, the #1 killer of RKS servers at the moment. Been tracking which maps servers were on when they come back up from their coma, and about 80% of the time, it's been Dragooncaves.

dragooncaves is the worse map for crashing servers in the current patch, it's also one of the only maps I've found so far that has a major problem with the num_edicts flag, I can run with a num_edicts of 1500 on pretty much all the other maps except this one, it crashes instantly when someone connects to dragooncaves with that set. The max players setting on the server will also determine whether or not it will run, it'll run with a max players set to 8, with 3 max connected players being completely stable, 4 with a chance of getting that no free edicts error, but if you bump the max player count higher it'll most likely crash on connect.

Well hopefully It's gonna be more stable with the fixes Thoth made..

Sorry everyone! My bad!

 

[Thothie]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

Again, it's not really your fault, I shoulda said something earlier. It just didn't occur to me just how many sprites there really were. Too many of any entity type is bad, but sprites are particularly nasty.

 

[MrJohnson]

Re: [Released rv1.0] Dragoon Caverns

Good job Furion I havent praised you ingame yet so ill do that here.
It's cool to see such contribution from community side to the mod.



btw never crashed on this map with up to 4 players. /like a boss