Woldcraft/Hammer compile times!

[TalRasha]

I hope we get with the Hammer 2 (for Half-life2) not soo long compile times like in Worldcraft for Half-life 1 !
Sometimes it tooks 10 -24 hours to compile the map (only to test the sunlight ect.)

 

[Nostradamus]

uhm... yes... but WHAT is the point of this thread?

anyway!
10-24 hours? ...nah not if u use some clever tools

 

[dawdler]

There is a map forum
But close enough.

Anyway, Hammer2 will probably very streamlined, compile times improved. Not to mention, from the Valve shots we have seen they are using a sort of placeholder texture when testing the world, maybe this is a speed compile mode just to test lighing/playability and such. Nobody knows for sure of course. (http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/10.jpg)

On the bad side though, with maps 16x as large as HL... Maybe long time anyway

 

[TalRasha]

Originally posted by Nostradamus
uhm... yes... but WHAT is the point of this thread?

anyway!
10-24 hours? ...nah not if u use some clever tools

Maybe someone know something about the compile time in HL2!

And yes, i know that tools "cordon", but if you want to test the sunlight you must rebuilt the full level!

 

[Majestic XII]

I just moved it to the mapping forum.

 

[TalRasha]

Originally posted by Majestic XII
I just moved it to the mapping forum.

Thanks, it was my mistake...i am new here and don´t know the ropes very well.

 

[Hudson]

too many new people nowdays for my liking..

 

[Papau]

Vis is going to be nasty. Very nasty. You'll be wishing for 24 hours.

 

[derby]

I can only predict that compile times are longer due to the larger maps. There may be more dynakmic lighting to speed the RAD equivelent but I believe Valve are using visibilty sets to determine culling. The visibilty algorithms are exponential in complexity (the time taken is proportional to some contsant raised to the power of the problem size), so no matter how much they are optimized, it will still take a long time to work. There will be less detail in the maps due to props, this will help out, but not if people set out to make a map 16 times larger than before (remember all those posts like 'wow source has LOD so it can handle anything! im going to make a map of new york!!').

I can only see compile times increasing. When I made maps for Quake1, it took all night to compile on my P100. Then when I was making maps for HL1 it still took all night compile, this time on my Athlon 1.2GHz.

 

[Papau]

Valve did say they have made changes to the compiler so it will run on multiple CPUs. That ought to be a clue.

 

[derby]

Good observation..... I may be comendeering the University LAN to compile my HL2 maps.

Might not be that bad though.

 

[The Mullinator]

Originally posted by Papau
Valve did say they have made changes to the compiler so it will run on multiple CPUs. That ought to be a clue.

I guess that means well see Grid computing like the SETI@Home project except for compiling HL2 maps instead.

cool.

 

[Shinobi]

crap,,, looks like I'm gonna be needing quad-xeon procs,,,, since I compile maybe once a day

 

[Echelon]

usually such large compiling times are caused by outdoor levels, with a huuuuuuge r_Speeds count. i made a map once, where it took like 8 hours to compile it. after inserting 2(!) vis blockers the compiling time dropped to 20 minutes... it also depends on the hardware you are using. i myself wonder how long a standart hl map will take to compile since they can be 16imes bigger than hl1 maps.

 

[Papau]

Originally posted by Echelon
usually such large compiling times are caused by outdoor levels, with a huuuuuuge r_Speeds count. i made a map once, where it took like 8 hours to compile it. after inserting 2(!) vis blockers the compiling time dropped to 20 minutes... it also depends on the hardware you are using. i myself wonder how long a standart hl map will take to compile since they can be 16imes bigger than hl1 maps.

I'd be very surprised (well, maybe not) if everyone continued to make the same old indoor military/industrial/storage complexes. I suspect that style map will persist for sometime, but will fade. The HL2 images we have seen suggest a significant number of large outdoor settings. Since 90% of mappers create maps in the same style as the standard maps that come with a game, I expect you will see a significant shift to outdoor environments and damn long compiles.

 

[Poindexter]

The new Hammer for HL2 will have a new feature to let you preview the lighting without having to compile the whole map(similar to a quick 1 frame render in 3DSMax). <---This will be a big time saver.

--Poindexter

 

[icepick912]

Well to reduce my compile times by about 1/10 of normal times, i use light spots instead of regular lights.

Works especially well on outdoor maps. just make there outer part at like 180.

 

[Echelon]

Originally posted by Papau
I'd be very surprised (well, maybe not) if everyone continued to make the same old indoor military/industrial/storage complexes. I suspect that style map will persist for sometime, but will fade. The HL2 images we have seen suggest a significant number of large outdoor settings. Since 90% of mappers create maps in the same style as the standard maps that come with a game, I expect you will see a significant shift to outdoor environments and damn long compiles.

i'Ve been talking bout hl1 no one xept for valve can know how long it tales to compile a map for hl2 yet.

 

[Zynaps]

The underlying system using a BSP tree and a portal based PVS appears to be unchanged from HL1 to HL2 with the addition of maybe octree based outdoor rendering (a guess from my side). So I'd expect greater compile times in HL2 than HL1. Altough valve has said they have created distributed versions of VIS and RAD which means you can use lots of computers to compile as long as they are networked.

 

[Nostradamus]

cant see were you get the info from, that the compile times will be longer..they will be reduced(of course you cpuspecs intervere) according to gabe.

 

[clay_9]

10-24 hours, lolz.
I'd suggest that you have some errors in the map. What machine were you trying to compile on?