lowering lightmap scales...FPS killer?

[poseyjmac]

as we know, making a lower lightmap scale on a face makes the lighting more precise, but the SDK documentation says at a cost. but it doesn't say whether it affects your FPS, or just your compile time. anyone know for sure?

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

it'll increase compile times and use more memory in-game.

 

[mrmonkah]

So long as you dont decrease the scale on every face in the game (just the ones where a player will notice sharper shadows) then i dont think its a major problem. I tend to lower the scale on cylinders in order to smooth the faces and i dont see any major lag.

 

[StardogChampion]

Yeah, compile times increase a huge amount. When you lower the scale you're increasing the resolution. So think of the cpu hit when looking at a bunch of 1024x1024 textures compared to 256x256.

You can counter the increased compile time by increasing the scale of the lightmaps on faces that are in shadow, since they don't need precise lighting information.