2 MB MAPPING CHALLANGE - Avatar

[ShadowRunner]

I'm interested to see what Nobody or Face will say, it does sound very SDK to me, annoying.

We've established that at least one of you is building movers correctly, if not both of you. But Avatar, I generally keep add brushes that became movers. I've noticed that SDK can struggle to retain texture info, or not make it buggy, when u delete the original add brushes. I think this is why you see workspaces in the SP maps have been left there. In fact I am 99% sure of it. You'll notice in Cozmo city, the vents in sewers, there is a spare vent door in a corner. I used the map itself as the workspace to reduce total numbers of zones in the map.

Let's assume the movers are being made correctly.

i rebuild sometimes it shows in 2d after a rebuild and then it doesn't show again after a rebuild then it does and so on

Well the smoking gun is right there (if movers are correct), something in the way the map is being rebuilt? I always believed that using the slider was dangerous, so I never have, also mistakenly I have always rebuilt on "optimal" setting. One time, I got rid of a BSP error by rebuilding on "good" setting, but that is like one time in 100's of map projects.

If that is not true, then I have to think about grid and whether brushes are actually on grid. The only way I know personally of ensuring 100% a brush is attached to the grid in the correct place, is to right click it's corner until the red cross moves from centre to corner of the red brush, then I make my brush.

From my experience though, if a mover is problematic, it's potentially time consuming to fix, when having the workspace present, you can simply make a new one. Also 90% of the time that I will duplicate a mover, it will fail.

Are you deleting your add brushes, after adding the mover, but before rebuilding? Again for same reason of workspaces, I think this can be a problem. I will take a look at your map again Avatar and see what, if anything, I can notice.

Also have u tried making just one mover, then rebuilding, then making another mover, then rebuilding?

But the fact you say this happens on more than map is confusing. It's harder to say, it's an error which is damaging the movers. I'm more inclined to believe something is wrong in the construction of the movers.

I've got a theory about Avatar's map, gonna check it now brb...

[ShadowRunner]

In the bottom view you can see the ladder is touching the wall and causing a "bsp" error. The top view shows where the ladder needs to be to avoid this.


In the top view, just I notice that everything in the map is laid out perfectly at 90 or 180 degrees, perhaps rotate some deco?
In the bottom view is my fix. It's not very good. I agree with you, this is a bug, although I didn't make the mover, seems ok.
When I move the light it fixes, whether the light is small or big, but when I rebuild it goes black again. So I think this fix is the solution for now. Use textures that need to be unlit. Can use coretexmisc textures perhaps, blue, green, red screens etc and change the colour of light to the colour of screen. This light is blue, so you don't really notice the colour. Damned annoying bug!


Here I notice a trigger outside the map.

I'm really liking this map. The water sounds are nice and it seems very playable for OA and you're putting details into it. I like the recess for the keypads, it all looks very pro and clean so far. Quite a few lights in vents, so if you go beyond 2mb you prolly have a few kb there to spare. Will be interesting to see how this develops. It's a million times better than the first map, I really like it. Just a thought on meggage, your pillars can be semi-solids. Right click>solidity>semi-solid. Also I'm holding breath to see how you make sources for the light.

[[DXA]avatar]

i was planning to put like light on the pillar and entrance ... i'll even try to put a torch xD...

and ye i noticed that ladder thingy ... i moved it away from the wall a bit :S... thx for the feed back!
lol i had lost 1 trigger .. i thought i del it :P ...

[chin.democ.]

About "black" movers - Movers surface brightness is defined by their position in keyframe 0 (normally closed position), you can change this to their open position or 1 (the mover will still act the same, you're not changing keyframes or anything). To do this right click the mover, click on properties then expand "mover" and then change the WorldRaytraceKey value from 0 to 1, it's worth a try.

Also you could try setting the mover to react to light around it, to do this right click the mover, click on properties then expand "mover" and then change the bDynamicLightMover to True.

[[DXA]avatar]

it has nothing to do with the mover :/ ... its a black wall ._. .... it was there as soon as i made the box ... the mover was made way later... :/

[anax]

i had a problem making a custom bio-bot station, the walls inside it kept staying dark but setting their texture scale to 0.5 fixed it.

[[DXA]avatar]

tried it ... doesn't fix ...

o well done a little lighting and now hit 900kb :O ! WOW !

added another pickup place ... SAME PROBLEM ...............Any thing subtracted fron something = black back wall unless unlit or bright backgrounds!!!... WHY!!!..

._. ....

lol and my new mover fails -.- ....

[[DXA]avatar]

for the mover ... it moves as in the highlight shows it has moved but the solid part stays there ._. ..... any suggestions why?

[[DXA]avatar]

ok fixed the mover ... it works it its edge is touching the opening of the cabinet however, if its inside the cabinet it doesn't work O.O ...

ok made a smaller mover and it looks better! !

[ShadowRunner]

About "black" movers - Movers surface brightness is defined by their position in keyframe 0 (normally closed position), you can change this to their open position or 1 (the mover will still act the same, you're not changing keyframes or anything). To do this right click the mover, click on properties then expand "mover" and then change the WorldRaytraceKey value from 0 to 1, it's worth a try.

Also you could try setting the mover to react to light around it, to do this right click the mover, click on properties then expand "mover" and then change the bDynamicLightMover to True.

Exactly this. When keyframe 1 activates, there's no light.

This is one reason why I tend to leave movers until the last phases of construction, when lights are everywhere.

[chin.democ.]

Movers can be funny things, the mover doors in DXMP_Turnpike_beta2 (the white frames) were intersected from one brush and yet it looks like several brushes were used to make the frame, I'm guessing it's because the movers were created in insufficient light.

[ShadowRunner]

To quote Hourence.com

split up that surface and create cuts so it can match the surface to the brush that hits it.

So you will get fan shape BSP cuts around a 8-sided pillar etc...

Solutions: http://www.hourences.com/tutorials-ue1ue2-bsp/

But, in the case of the door, I understand that, because subtractions make something similar to concave polygons, which is recommended to be avoided. If the door wasn't rectangular, it might not work perhaps.

@ Avatar

About the map, I have a hunch that a totally flat map is not going to win with the players. It makes it easier for everyone to snipe perhaps, but I think some pros prefer the challenge of something like DryDock or Smuggler or Smuggles, where fire in some areas could come from different heights, not necessarily head height/scoping all the time. IT could be something as simple as raising and lowering a few areas with steps like Smuggler and having a hole in the second floor in the middle area. Or more corridors leading to stairs which lead to a corridor crossing through the upper level of the main hall with your pillars.

[[DXA]avatar]

well i still got 1 mb left so might as well make a bit of lvl 2 :/

[[DXA]avatar]

firsly, my old lights kinda sucked so i made some new a cooler ones. ... however ... my map became 2.5mb due to lighting !! so i del'ed some now its 2.3 :/ .... i need some help to reduce map ... btw does changing the lights and pillars to semi-solids reduce size?

also whats the difference between solids and semisolids :/ .. i nvr figured it out :P
g
edit:
i found this on google ... soo is it ok if i make lights which are flat on the cieling and pillars semisolids

Solid vs. Semi-solid vs. Non-solidBrushes

[SLAM] There are three types of brushes, solid, semisolid, and nonsolid. The kind Ace was describing are really nonsolid, and those are also good for making lights with (in some cases, read on). Semisolid are brushes that have some of the BSP properties of nonsolids, but still like normal solids.



Now, when to use them as lights...this is the trick. If you have a nonsolid brush, and add it at exactly the same level as a solid brush (i.e., a subtracted room's ceiling) then it may or may not be visible. If it is visible, you're likely to get texture clipping lines, which is a nasty effect. Generally, this can be acheived by lowering them from the ceiling...but then nothing will collide with them. Thus, semisolids bring into play the best of both worlds. You can place them flat against the surface if you want, and they'll show up fine, or you can lower them, and still have projectiles, etc collide with them.



Be warned, also, that a solid brush, or nonsolid brush set to zone portal will maintain zone integrity. Semisolids will NOT under ANY circumstances maintain zone integrity. If you've got zones leaking into each other at some point, and you're using a lot of semisolids, look to make sure one isn't opening up a hole to another zone.



[Storm] Q: What is the difference between a solid and semisolid brush?

A: A solid brush causes bsp cuts and a semisolid doesn't. You can subtract from a solid, but not a semisolid. A solid will hold zone properties, but a semisolid won't. Use semisolids for details that aren't zone barriers and also for any small insignificant adds that you can. Don't use them for large brushes because that can cause large HOM (Hall of Mirrors) spots and FPS (Framerates Per Second) slowdowns.

some thing wierd just happened ... i deleted 2 pillar and checked the size and it increase .... lol?...

[anax]

http://www.planetdeusex.com/tack/BrushTips.html#tip4
here ya go. Semisolid brushes act the same as the solid add brushes except that they use up less memory.

free standing brushes are the ones which should be semisolid - open dxmp_smuggler up you'll see which brushes were made semisolid. gg.