DM-DustStorm2k12

[jefe]

I've always experienced at least some slowdown with large sprites. My current pc has a built-in AMD card, but my last one was NVdia, and the ones before that Ati (before they were bought by AMD.) It happens even on consoles.

I really don't know much about the skybox hack, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't do anything with the Direct 3D renderer, or at least on modern hardware. The render lightmaps thing really doesn't make much of a difference either. One huge optimization step is to turn off or reduce things like anti-aliasing on your video card's gaming manager for UT2004.

Station's skybox problem is caused by several layers of transparent multipass shaders. The glass on the ceiling, and then two layers of clouds, meaning that the the engine has to do at least 6 rendering passes when looking the sky - from any one glass mesh. And the ceiling is made up of a bunch of smaller meshes. Any sprites from weapon fire adds to that - add muzzle flash, and a few layers of smoke and you have some serious slow down. That's a lot of work for the game engine just to decide to show the flat blue color behind the clouds. I redesigned the skybox to not use transparency in my version so the glass is now only bit with it. The transparency issue extended to other areas of the map, too, where you could see through multiple layers of glass simultaneously.

Old Haven's problems aren't nearly as severe, and from glancing at it in the editor I can see that the skybox and most other materials are set up a lot better. It still feels sluggish too me, I'd have to investigate more. I'm guessing it's partly the water, since the effect is pretty complex. But the asset load is definitely a factor - compared Village, which is 23 mb, Old Haven is 72. Nearly three times the size, and from what I can see, the meshes are more complex.

[Skaldy]

OK, thx. I've probably done most things already, but I'm always eager to optimise my system as much as I can: the OS, code, settings or whatever.

And apparently that SkyboxHack simplifies water reflections, so I'll leave it as "true".

Before I left the industry, it was always very difficult to get the artists to reduce the footprints of their game resources. They were rarely willing to compromise on detail and quality, even if they were supposed to be achieving a limited memory size. We ended up building some auto-reduction steps into the tool-chain, and just not telling them!

[jefe]

"Reflections" are extremely simple in UT2004, and generally don't cause problems unless they are overused (DM-Redkin comes to mind.) You'll get more out of putting your physics settings to low.

Before I left the industry, it was always very difficult to get the artists to reduce the footprints of their game resources. They were rarely willing to compromise on detail and quality, even if they were supposed to be achieving a limited memory size. We ended up building some auto-reduction steps into the tool-chain, and just not telling them!

Unfortunately, that applies to BW and its addons. It's been a very long time since I looked any of the files or even played it, but it's at the very least contributing to performance issues people have here. Maybe there have been some optimizations since I last looked at it, but the problem is bad enough that some people run out of memory while using the standard D3D renderer. There's a 64-bit patch that will help.

[jefe]

So, did some more work on this one.

In addition to the stuff mentioned above, I set up new meshes and textures for the palm leaves, a recolor of the ones from the ECE bonus pack. I also exported some textures from Counter Strike Source, which ironically, I had never actually played before. But I took a look around using Gary's Mod, made some notes of things I'd like to add and was able to see what was "legit" about the UT version of Dust and what wasn't. I figured out the reason why Dust2k5 (which this is ultimately based on) got some things wrong is because it was actually an edit of an even earlier map called DM-CSDust080. That map was based on the original CS, not CS Source. Dust2k5 was an attempt to redo CSDust080 in CS Source's style and explains why some of the BSP is such a mess. Some of CSDust080's buildings are actually hidden under or merged into the newer geometry. I don't plan to redesign the map further, but it's worth mentioning.

As a result the crates, posters and litter are a lot more varied and where applicable, have the proper transparency. I also redesigned the connecting areas from DC][ so that they now more naturally fit the level's style.


Here are some new screens:







Now in this last screen I set up a little dead end area. It's currently blocked off and can't be accessed. The reason I added this is because in your INV version you have a long section without path nodes (no monsters will spawn.) This is ready made for that, all is needed is to remove the door and possibly add a connection to the back of the building beside it. Normally I design for DM first and add some subtle things for INV play. My gut says this dead end won't work for DM, and will be slow for INV. But if it something the INV people need here, I don't mind setting it up for an INV version.


One other issue I want to discuss are ledges. I've redone most of the blocking volumes on the map. There are a few ledges I left in play though. The first is near the shock rifle on top of crates near the over pass - there is a long ledge that you can stand on. The wooden posts near the white van and flak also can be stood on, use a shield jump from one of the crates at the end. It makes a good sniping position. So are these considered bad things on your BW server? I can disable them, doesn't really matter to me either way.

I haven't changed pickups much, but I did move the redeemer and painter to the second floor of this building which requires a translocator to access and can be considered another INV safe room. Any issues with this?

[Calypto]

Judging by the screens, it looks very nice. I could see this going on the main server, and INV as well. In the DM version, the ledges were blocked off if found. As a result however, the bombs from the strike painter always hit the blocking volume and never quite made it to the players. The palm tree leaves also look much better.

In my opinion, this UT port never really felt like the original, only the textures and the center temple had and real resemblence of the map. The movement also, I'd like to have limited to single jumps/dodges. But that wouldn't work with the playerbase too well. The wooden posts that are accessible by shield gun are fine, BW doesn't really have anything with such a movement function anymore.

I'm not sure about the unused hallway. You're right, it would be quite slow for both gametypes. I don't have any propositions for it at the moment. Also, this paragraph structure is somewhat off.

[jefe]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll send you a copy of my current build so you can check it out further. It's not quite ready for my server or yours, but is close.

[jefe]

I wasn't able to do any mapping for a few months to some rather painful and debilitating carpal tunnel problems. But I'm better now and I have a beta ready for testing:

http://www.vgmp3.org/DLs/UT2004/DM-Dust ... III-B3.zip

All of my old screenshots are gone due to Xfire shutting down, so here are some via Steam:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =487098909
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =487097205
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =487097471
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =487097825
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =487097876

Since the last version I talked about here I opened up that blocked off area and set up a toggle switch to open a door behind the black van. I think your invasion players will like this. It's still a bit of a dead end for TDM players, but I am considering doing one more build with the entrances to that area blocked off for non-INV modes. Other than that I added some more decoration, tweaked a few hiding spots and worked on better pathing.

Looking at your comment about the strike painter, I don't know what to do about that (don't have that weapon on my server for one thing) but there is a blocking volume over the level, this is to prevent people translocating out of the map or being knocked out by monsters - In fact this is one of the reasons why I started working on DC 3. The first time we tested DC][ we got knocked out since there were gaps in the volumes over the new areas added by Vanico.

A lot of maps have volumes over levels, particularly ones made with invasion in mind. Probably the most elegant solution would be to modify that weapon's projectiles so they ignore volumes - this would work on all maps. Deleting the volume over the level would be the quickest choice for TDM though, but the super weapon pickups should be inaccessible for them anyway, so it shouldn't matter unless translocators are enabled. One far more tedious option would be extending the blocking volumes over the walls much higher so that they reach the top of the extracted area of the level so there would be no need for a blocking volume over the map.

I think what you'll need are separate TDM and INV versions, I was thinking of doing that anyway, but didn't really want to commit to it. If you have any specific ideas about this map for TDM, I'd like to hear it. At least in terms of INV, I feel the map is finished. I'd rather not rebuild the BSP (had some BSP issues I'd rather not deal with again) but I'm ok with tweaking basic things like weapons and pickups at this point. If I need to block off anything for TDM (like that second-story area with super weapons) I'll just use some static meshes and blocking volumes.

[Calypto]

Hi! The map looks really good, the textures and BSP cut-outs are faithful to the original style of this map. Yes, the dead end is not so good in a PvP setting; I believe removing all path-generating actors and adding a blocking volume to the door should be sufficient, as 3SPN game types use paths as spawns.

For the target painter, I think setting the blocking volume to bClassBlocker to true and adding the blocked class as Engine.Pawn should work sufficiently for just that.

[jefe]

I set up the blocking volume over the level to block pawns and translocator beacons. I don't think I really need to do anything to it for TDM then, since that should solve your main issue. I'm going to release this version shortly - if you still need anything tweaked for TDM, let me know.

[jefe]

Final version is out:

http://ut2k4.gamebanana.com/maps/187320



There are a few minor changes including some more deco and swapped weapon locations. Enjoy!