Developer Journal: Defrag
Posted 1 decade ago Lead Map Design
BORING SHIT but I thought I'd better write something
I've been really busy over the last few weeks, but I've been spending the odd hour or two on shutdown2. I've got a load of lighting bugs so I've been going around the map taking screenshots, then sitting with image viewer open & constantly moving to the next problem image, trying to fix it, moving to the next image, fix it... repeat ad nauseum.
Many of the lighting issues are caused by engine limitations and include:
1. Vertex lighting transitions on props. These are ugly but can be smoothed out with better placement and subdivision of meshes (or placing low intensity lights near the seams).
2. Displacement lighting errors. These are annoying as it can take many iterations to clear up the errors; it's tough to visualise what it'll look like without compiling the map. I usually just drop the lightmap scale and add some low intensity lights near the errors. It's no big deal for terrain, but for curved geometry it can take many iterations to fix.
3. Areas where func_details 'join' regular brush geometry. You'd think this would've been fixed by now (it's a compile tool issue) but no such luck. Basically, if a curve or other piece of func_detail geometry touches a regular brush and there's no split at the edge where they join, you get a really ugly seam. To fix it, you have to split all world brushes where the func detail intersects it. I've fixed most of these now.
I've also been fixing niggling bugs such as clipping. I've removed all of the pillars from the ramp room as I just wasn't happy with the way it flowed. It meant I had to add loads of clip brushes and the pillars just didn't look 'right' anyway. Instead, I've added some embedded light fittings to fit in with the new theme and it's looking better. Other stuff I've been working on includes making the pit darker and more scary :) -- I've also removed the pillars from the plank route and, again, it looks cleaner & better than before. I'm basically just trying to tackle all of the issues I can before I have to create the second base once more because, once I do that, I have to do a time consuming search & replace on all textures & entities, change prop skins, make sure I don't duplicate certain entities, repair all of the broken overlays and so on. If I have to make more big changes in future, I basically have to delete one base, make the changes and then clone the base and go through all of this work again. It's not fun. I can't wait to make non-symmetrical maps again as the work flow is less frustrating when making significant changes.
As for screenshots... uh soon. I promise.
Beta News
In other news, the beta test was really good last week and this week; we had 20+ people all vying for places on the server and actually ended up caning the server a lot which is a touch worrying. Something in the server code is bogging down the performance, so the programmers will have to look into this as a priority. The mod seems to run fine with 16-18 people, but as soon as we went over 20, things started grinding to a halt.
Jesse News
Jesse uninstalled Battlefield 2. I don't believe him, though.
Oh no, he's got yer shoes; he's gonnae throw them on the roof!. I think I'm going to put a pair of doc martens on every single roof in FF.
This is the most boring dev journal I'll ever write. The last bit saved it. God bless you, INTERNET.
View all developer journals I've been really busy over the last few weeks, but I've been spending the odd hour or two on shutdown2. I've got a load of lighting bugs so I've been going around the map taking screenshots, then sitting with image viewer open & constantly moving to the next problem image, trying to fix it, moving to the next image, fix it... repeat ad nauseum.
Many of the lighting issues are caused by engine limitations and include:
1. Vertex lighting transitions on props. These are ugly but can be smoothed out with better placement and subdivision of meshes (or placing low intensity lights near the seams).
2. Displacement lighting errors. These are annoying as it can take many iterations to clear up the errors; it's tough to visualise what it'll look like without compiling the map. I usually just drop the lightmap scale and add some low intensity lights near the errors. It's no big deal for terrain, but for curved geometry it can take many iterations to fix.
3. Areas where func_details 'join' regular brush geometry. You'd think this would've been fixed by now (it's a compile tool issue) but no such luck. Basically, if a curve or other piece of func_detail geometry touches a regular brush and there's no split at the edge where they join, you get a really ugly seam. To fix it, you have to split all world brushes where the func detail intersects it. I've fixed most of these now.
I've also been fixing niggling bugs such as clipping. I've removed all of the pillars from the ramp room as I just wasn't happy with the way it flowed. It meant I had to add loads of clip brushes and the pillars just didn't look 'right' anyway. Instead, I've added some embedded light fittings to fit in with the new theme and it's looking better. Other stuff I've been working on includes making the pit darker and more scary :) -- I've also removed the pillars from the plank route and, again, it looks cleaner & better than before. I'm basically just trying to tackle all of the issues I can before I have to create the second base once more because, once I do that, I have to do a time consuming search & replace on all textures & entities, change prop skins, make sure I don't duplicate certain entities, repair all of the broken overlays and so on. If I have to make more big changes in future, I basically have to delete one base, make the changes and then clone the base and go through all of this work again. It's not fun. I can't wait to make non-symmetrical maps again as the work flow is less frustrating when making significant changes.
As for screenshots... uh soon. I promise.
Beta News
In other news, the beta test was really good last week and this week; we had 20+ people all vying for places on the server and actually ended up caning the server a lot which is a touch worrying. Something in the server code is bogging down the performance, so the programmers will have to look into this as a priority. The mod seems to run fine with 16-18 people, but as soon as we went over 20, things started grinding to a halt.
Jesse News
Jesse uninstalled Battlefield 2. I don't believe him, though.
Oh no, he's got yer shoes; he's gonnae throw them on the roof!. I think I'm going to put a pair of doc martens on every single roof in FF.
This is the most boring dev journal I'll ever write. The last bit saved it. God bless you, INTERNET.