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02-22-2019, 02:45 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-01-2022, 01:07 AM by Fearless Community.
Edit Reason: Checked Encoding
)
As everyone requests more transparancy in my work, I will tell something about the problems I am currently in.
Before Garry's Mod had this amazing hammer update, I was running into a few issues.
There is a "block" in hammer which we call solids. Solids can be every shape. A wall, a window, the street or an arc. But to make an arc, we need multiple solids. We call this a complex structure. VBSP is the compiler of Source Engine maps. VBSP had a limit of 8192 solids (which I was already hitting), Whenever you exceeded this limit, the map couldn't compile at all. There are (which I am using) hacked compilers which raise these limits. This is great, and allow for more resources to work with. The problem however is that we don't know what a stable limit is. Is it just a bit over, or does that make the game crash? Is it unlimited? We had no idea.
Due to this, I was forced to take some steps into optimization. By turning buildings into props. This would save around 100 solids per building (because some buildings repeat, we can better have props of them). But this raises another problem, lighting.
See ligthing is carefully calculated by vrad (Valve Radiosity Simulator). This compiler calculates all kinds of lighting. This is the most expensive process of the whole compiling cycle. But it has a problem with props. Even though it does calculate shadow pretty good. Props are quite hard to process because of their tiny details, textures and sizes.
vrad doesn't normally do much with props. It looks at the models, calculates a quick shadow and then moves on. But that's a problem when it comes to prop houses. See, houses have windows, doors, and lightbulbs attached to the ceiling. This time, vrad has to calculate what light comes trough the window, what the light inside the house does, where the light bounces off and creates shadows inside the house.
Most of this has to be done manually. I need to create files with models names which need to be taken care of. I need to fix the light sources. And worst of all, I need to go trough EVERY model, and select an option to make vrad take care of that model with detailed lighting.
This is a very costly process, it takes a lot of time.
Now, with the release if the new gmod update. The limits of the source engine and it's compiling tools has been made clear. We now what the limits are, what is stable and what is not.
With this knowledge, I can reverse some of the work I've done on optimizng and get out the way of the issues which would occur with prop houses and lightning calculation. And eventually speed up development.
I should have been more clear with was is going on. And that this process is not easy at all. Especially when you don't have much time to work on it.
I'm expected to continue with development soon, and will tell about the steps I've taken.
I hope I informed you enough with this. And hopefully made you understand that working on a big map like this, and wanting it to look spectaculair brings a lot of problems with it.
Before Garry's Mod had this amazing hammer update, I was running into a few issues.
There is a "block" in hammer which we call solids. Solids can be every shape. A wall, a window, the street or an arc. But to make an arc, we need multiple solids. We call this a complex structure. VBSP is the compiler of Source Engine maps. VBSP had a limit of 8192 solids (which I was already hitting), Whenever you exceeded this limit, the map couldn't compile at all. There are (which I am using) hacked compilers which raise these limits. This is great, and allow for more resources to work with. The problem however is that we don't know what a stable limit is. Is it just a bit over, or does that make the game crash? Is it unlimited? We had no idea.
Due to this, I was forced to take some steps into optimization. By turning buildings into props. This would save around 100 solids per building (because some buildings repeat, we can better have props of them). But this raises another problem, lighting.
See ligthing is carefully calculated by vrad (Valve Radiosity Simulator). This compiler calculates all kinds of lighting. This is the most expensive process of the whole compiling cycle. But it has a problem with props. Even though it does calculate shadow pretty good. Props are quite hard to process because of their tiny details, textures and sizes.
vrad doesn't normally do much with props. It looks at the models, calculates a quick shadow and then moves on. But that's a problem when it comes to prop houses. See, houses have windows, doors, and lightbulbs attached to the ceiling. This time, vrad has to calculate what light comes trough the window, what the light inside the house does, where the light bounces off and creates shadows inside the house.
Most of this has to be done manually. I need to create files with models names which need to be taken care of. I need to fix the light sources. And worst of all, I need to go trough EVERY model, and select an option to make vrad take care of that model with detailed lighting.
This is a very costly process, it takes a lot of time.
Now, with the release if the new gmod update. The limits of the source engine and it's compiling tools has been made clear. We now what the limits are, what is stable and what is not.
With this knowledge, I can reverse some of the work I've done on optimizng and get out the way of the issues which would occur with prop houses and lightning calculation. And eventually speed up development.
I should have been more clear with was is going on. And that this process is not easy at all. Especially when you don't have much time to work on it.
I'm expected to continue with development soon, and will tell about the steps I've taken.
I hope I informed you enough with this. And hopefully made you understand that working on a big map like this, and wanting it to look spectaculair brings a lot of problems with it.