Splitting Brushes

Cyborgguineapig

<div class="IPBDescription">Helping performance?</div> Yeah see attached image below. My question...I have a bunch of pipes in my map and was wondering, would it help performance if I were to chop the parts of the pipes not seen by the player making two faces now only one? Its obvious that less faces mean better performance but I was curious wither or not its more complicated a thing than I think. Am I really cutting out two faces or are there still two?

I've also notices that some of the official maps cut off the edges of detail brushes to save on R_speeds,just wanted to confirm that this really does work the way its supposed to and actually not count the part of the brush that I lobbed off when compiling. I know that the vertex points arn't shown probably answering my whole queation of cutting brushes but justw ant to confirm this.
Thanks.

Edit: sorry, please note that the two pipes arn't supposed to be comparing each other, there just two pipes that I cut together at the same time showing the same result. The first pipe simply shows how "both" teh pipes looked before cutting and how they look after cutting resulting in supposedly a one face decrees.

watch_me_die

I'm thinking it would help... try compiling the map then checking R_speeds for whole pipes and `cut' pipes

Yamazaki

If you know the player will never see the faces, apply the NULL texture instead. If you compile with the latest ZHLT Merl tools, it will completely remove the faces textured with NULL. This is better than flattening off details on unseen brushes.

Vyvn

Yes, while cutting off and NULLing the face on this pipe WILL lower r_speeds (by one single w_poly, heh), it will ALSO have the benefit of lowering your planes count.

I think.

Ollj

because of the real bad vis-calculation you will always see and calculate polygos that you dont see actually.
It will make compiling much faster, and R_speeds a little faster.

Cyborgguineapig

Thanks guys. Yeah, I just got the latest zoners compile tools and already know about putting null on faces not seen. Infact I have null on the flatt face where I have cut the pipe brushes. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> I've got another question though if you guys don't mind. I have looked everywhere including Verc and Handy Vandal's website but have no idea what the HINT and SKIP textures are for in the newest version of Zoners tools.

Ollj

<a href='http://lunaran.fragland.net/lsite.php?content=hints' target='_blank'>http://lunaran.fragland.net/lsite.php?content=hints</a>
<a href='http://www.gamedesign.net/archive/old.gamedesign.net/quake2/tutorials/dewan_hint/' target='_blank'>http://www.gamedesign.net/archive/old.game...als/dewan_hint/</a>
<a href='http://mapping.leprau.de/hint/' target='_blank'>http://mapping.leprau.de/hint/</a> (http://mapping.leprau.de/hint/rman with good pictiures)

ChromeAngel

Slicing the back of a pipe like that will save you a plane too. Could be usefull to people hitting the planes limit.

Yamazaki

It will not lower planes at all. Planes are the one of the first things ever calculated by the compiler, removing faces is done afterwards. So the planes remain after the face has been culled. Every side of a brush, no matter where it is or whether it will remain or not, will generate a plane if no other brush sits on the same plane.

So the trick to reducing planes is to line up some of your geometry a bit, like lining up the outside walls of your map, the parts touching the void.

ChromeAngel

I think you misunderstand me Yamzaki. I meant if he slices off the pipes as shown in the diagram he will save on planes, as opposed to using the Null texture (which I assume Yamazaki was talking about).