NS2 maps

cat

<div class="IPBDescription">Still CSG?</div>I have a very basic question about the technical setup of NS2 maps. Are we supposed to create sealed off room boxes to avoid leaks and have proper occlusion similar to Source engine games and NS1 or are we using the inverted concept as in the unreal based games?
And what happens if I leave rooms open to the void?

Magneto

The engine doesn't care.

hookeyed

yeah, I've run a map that's just a single face and a bunch of entities. it's flexible

Thaldarin

Well it's not true that the engine doesn't care.

The engine does not have the hall of mirrors effect that you may encounter in Half-Life/Quake/Source based games.

However the engine DOES care. There is no level of detail progression in the game, if the void is open in an area the engine at it's current will try and find a way to get out of it and to render anything behind it. You ARE best off SEALING your areas, as this should stop the engine rendering any geometry it doesn't need to.

At present, the engine is a little buggy on this and does render some things behind sealed areas, however it does have a cut off point.

cat

What is needed to have something sealed? Will 2 connected planes seal the void at their edges? Or is a "thick" physical obstruction needed like in source, where 2 blocks that only share one connected edge would not seal?

Kouji_San

To really test this I'd advice to use this console command to see the occlusion culling at work and to see if there are problem areas:

r_wireframe


It is a toggle command you can use in cheats mode:

cheats 1


A thing to keep in mind is that vis blocking is always a good idea even with new engines

Thaldarin

Models and faces are supposed to seal a level. However, remember models have little niggly bits too which may require some extra attention.

NurEinMensch

<!--quoteo(post=1828163:date=Jan 28 2011, 07:59 PM:name=cat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cat @ Jan 28 2011, 07:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1828163"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I have a very basic question about the technical setup of NS2 maps. Are we supposed to create sealed off room boxes to avoid leaks and have proper occlusion similar to Source engine games and NS1 or are we using the inverted concept as in the unreal based games?
And what happens if I leave rooms open to the void?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


Neither actually. Spark doesn't need to know what's inside and what's outside. Just go by a simple rule, the more is visible at any given moment, the more work for the engine. Small leaks generally don't cause any problems, unless they allow you to see into other parts of the level. But levels don't need to be "air tight". You can remove whole walls, as long as only the void is behind it, it won't impact the frame rate much. Probably increase it. ;p