HL2 map sizes

[Shinobi]

not exactly,, a polygon is a portion of the description of a brush,, it has other properties as well,,, but yeah,, I guess it's all how you look at it,,

 

[ToddTheFrog]

Anything created as a brush (terrain, buildings etc) won't have any realtime occlusion done on it. THat's why a GTA3-esque cityscape isn't possible. My original point stands.

So why can't someone just create the sky scrapers in a 3d program with 2 or 3 Levels of Detail and then basically just use hammer to place them and create the ground ...... whats so hard about doing that?

Todd

 

[The Dark Elf]

So why can't someone just create the sky scrapers in a 3d program with 2 or 3 Levels of Detail and then basically just use hammer to place them and create the ground ...... whats so hard about doing that?

Todd

Nothing hard about that, but the engine will be drawing 100% of everything you see 100% of the time, unlike with brushes which draws what you see not what you don't see.. It's how the engine works. use props(meshes) for detail, brushes for world objects.

 

[ToddTheFrog]

So you're saying that if you use something created in a 3D program and import it into HL2 whether its on screen or not, it will be drawn? What if you make two LOD, one w/ the prop and the other w/ nothing so that even if it draws it, no polygon hit.

-Todd

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

How are you going to manage the LODs?

With a map, the engine knows from any given point what can and can't be seen. With models/props, it doesn't. If you have one prop behind another, it draws them both - you have no way of forcing the engine to use the zero LOD at the right time.

 

[ToddTheFrog]

How are you going to manage the LODs?

With a map, the engine knows from any given point what can and can't be seen. With models/props, it doesn't. If you have one prop behind another, it draws them both - you have no way of forcing the engine to use the zero LOD at the right time.

Distance fog and if an object is x distance from person then it won't draw it. Thats a very easy solution.

-Todd

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

And everything else inside the fog radius? Unless you plan to have your maps set on ReallyDenseFogworld, it's a really crappy non-solution.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Distance fog and if an object is x distance from person then it won't draw it. Thats a very easy solution.

-Todd

As Pi says, crappy non-solution

Really in Source your only choice is brushes because thats what the engine is optimized for. Props are used yes, but just for detailed area's that brushes would be too much screwing around to use for.

The reason meshes work well for props, is they don't go by the same rules brushes do.. For brushes to be optimized in Source and other bsp based engines, they are worked out differently. So meshes work great for little details that brushes would just be a headache to use for.

There's nothing stopping you of course from building a map from meshes alone, but you'll then need to surround it completely with a very large hollowed out brush cube, and everyone knows what happens when you try compile a complex map with something like that surrounding everything.

Not only that but props will likely not work with certain things correctly, such as the radiosity calculations, so you'd get strange lighting from a mesh only map. (It's probably not noticable for the most part when used sparingly)

Then you've got the problem of your map being displayed IN FULL every frame, anything more complex than simple flat walls in a tiny map is going to start to crawl.

If you want to make maps directly with meshes only. You'll be best using another engine, though there aren't so many that work with polygons only. Morrowind is one, but its got no optimisation, which is why a complex morrowind area will chug along even if your behind an object, because its constantly calculating everything infront of you, even if you don't see it.