Question about Map Sizes

[Halorin]

For the Half-Life 2 mod I'm developing, we're trying to create maps that will be sections of a city. I would say that the size of the maps will be around a square mile, maybe smaller. In this area, there will be buildings and skyscrapers. Players will be able to drive around in this area, but there will also be places where street fighting takes place.

My question is, can Half-Life 2 feasibly handle a map of this detail and size?

Thanks,
Hal

 

[Ti133700N]

Yes... Well, half a mile would be the default size but you can scale the details down to get more space and a bigger map.

 

[Dead-Inside]

For the Half-Life 2 mod I'm developing, we're trying to create maps that will be sections of a city. I would say that the size of the maps will be around a square mile, maybe smaller. In this area, there will be buildings and skyscrapers. Players will be able to drive around in this area, but there will also be places where street fighting takes place.

My question is, can Half-Life 2 feasibly handle a map of this detail and size?

Thanks,
Hal

If you can get it on the grid, then yes it can handle it. (Max everything out to 100%, all of the buffers).

 

[Halorin]

Alright, cool. Thanks guys. Means a lot.

 

[pur3r4ge]

I'm working on a similar thing right now, so just to warn you: don't expect to have the same level of detail as HL2, if you want it to be very large and have long view distances. You should try and make the roads kind of winding, to block view distances, rather then long open avenues.

 

[Halorin]

Thanks for the advice. I actually am going to be doing the coding for the mod, but I just wanted to make sure that the systems we have planned will be able to work before we get about 70% of the way there however long from now and realize we can't.

Another question: Is it possible to have more than one unit ratio on the same map?

 

[pur3r4ge]

I don't know enough about it to say for absolutely certain, but I'm going to lean towards a strong "no" on that. I'm not sure that you can even change the scale from map to map, since I think it's defined in the gameinfo.txt.

 

[Halorin]

Hrm, alright. I'm still a relative novice in coding for HL2, but if there's a way, I'll see about it. Thanks!

 

[Unvision]

You probably know this, but also, make sure you cap things off at a certain height, and make everything above that (skyscrapers) a skybox. If you do it right, it will line up perfectly (think aztec and dust - trees and buildings are skybox.)

 

[Dead-Inside]

Well if you're making a mod (Which I assume you are), you can scale things down.

How, I do not know. According to VALVe the only real drawback, apart from it being heavy on the computer and taking up lots of space when loading, is that physics calculations will become less accurate the smaller you go. Using lightmaps you can still get the same lighting on stuff though, so don't worry about that.

Bottom line of this post; Direct further questions to VALVe, with thural questions on what you want to do, technically.

 

[Halorin]

That's a great idea, Dark. I hate to trouble you, but do you know where I could start looking with contacting them?

 

[Dead-Inside]

General Discussion has a "Info from VALVe" stickied thread. It should be the first thread up top actually. First page has contact info.

If you want to email others you can look at www.valvesoftware.com at their employees.

 

[Halorin]

Thanks again!