Guidance for a newbie

[miked4o7]

Hi, just started mapping the other day (Ichi's tutorial helped me immensely). I was wondering if some of the more experience mappers had any advice for us just starting. Particularly, I want to avoid getting into any bad mapping habits, so if there are things where there are various ways of doing something with a map, I'd like to get in the habit of doing the one that's going to use the least amount of resources and whatnot. Any advice or guidance is greatly appreciated... thank you.

 

[another_asswipe]

Start with trying to dont use hollow and carve ...

 

[miked4o7]

does that hog resources? or does it place some kind of limitations on what I can do with that object? If there are situations that aren't affected by hollowing, it seems far more efficient than building a room one wall at a time.

 

[Ti133700N]

Hollow is fine. Don't start by adding props, textures, buyzones or lights. Start by making the basics of the geometry. Put an orange texture, one light or an environment light if you can, and a player start. When everything is working, start to texture, add little details. Save often (and on a different name). Test often.

 

[[]D | |V| []D]

where is that Ichi's tutorial ?

 

[another_asswipe]

Hollow is fine.

Not true. If you would have made some map with hl1 you would know that 1: hollow increase r_speeds and add some compilation time so even if we mostly don't care about r_speeds now we still care about the rest...

 

[Ti133700N]

I made alot of maps for CS. Hollow doesn't increase r_speeds nor compilation time. I care about the r_speeds. I think you are confusing "using the hollow tool" and "making a huge hollow brush to enclose your level". If you make a big textured brush and hollow it (what I call a newb brush), then yes the r_speeds will increase and so the compile time.

 

[another_asswipe]

yes they do increase the r_speeds if you know how to really make a single cube you would see the difference

 

[miked4o7]

sorry for what must seem like stupid questions, but what are r_speeds?

 

[Ti133700N]

You can enter r_speeds in the console to display how many polygons are drawn. When I say polygons I mean triangles cuz game engines are working only with tris. Basicaly, two measures are displayed: wpolys and epolys. wpolys include all the brushes (even the brush-based entities). This measure is the one that matters. You need to keep it as low as possible to ensure a smooth game. epolys are the polygons that make models and other point based entities. When wpolys are to high in an area, the game will lag. To make sure the wpoly is low, we use VIS Blockers. They are basicaly brushes that block the visibility between you and the rest of the level. For example, if you have a big room with alot of stuff in it and you can see all the stuff in the room at any time. Put a wall in the middle and you won't see the objects on the other side of the walls and they won't be drawn.

 

[Geronimous]

I thought the whole r_speeds story was no longer of importance for Source? I believe there was a new way of a tool to keep track of your maps complexity ?

 

[Ti133700N]

Yes you'r right the r_speeds has been more or less replaced by another tool (+showbudget). The whole concept, however, is still the same. The more brushes the player can see, the more it will lag and VIS Blockers are still usefull.