125% Of Light Maximum. :(
Ollj
our themepark-stalking nightmare Fade Join Date: 2002-12-12 Member: 10696Members
our themepark-stalking nightmare Fade Join Date: 2002-12-12 Member: 10696Members
<div class="IPBDescription">how to decrease?</div> i have just a few small cubes that emmit texture lights all over my map, nothing special, nothing detailed, 1/3 of the light is flickering.
I render with -chop 128 -texchop 64 -bounce2 -sparse (ZHLT custom 1.7p)
My map has a few large open areas, a cave part is just a big emty block right now.
How much memory do lights with custom appearance need compared to a static light?
What are the best ways to stay below the magimum on a large map with many detailed lights?
I render with -chop 128 -texchop 64 -bounce2 -sparse (ZHLT custom 1.7p)
My map has a few large open areas, a cave part is just a big emty block right now.
How much memory do lights with custom appearance need compared to a static light?
What are the best ways to stay below the magimum on a large map with many detailed lights?
Comments
<ul>
<li>Every face is chopped up into sample points (-chop)
<li>Every sample point is lit using each style (normal, flicker, strong pulse, etc) that touches it. Each style of light is stored separately.
</ul>
During the game, the lighting code adds the light for each style times the current brightness for that style (is the flicker on or off currently? is the strobe currently at 25% of total brightness? 75%? 100%?) together to get the final light amount for that sample for each frame, so it has to keep the data for each style separate -- if you have a flicker and a normal light on a face, each sample on that face will store twice as much data. If you had flicker A, flicker B, and normal light styles on the same face, you'd have 3 times the information stored.
Because bounce doesn't change the light styles (only the final amount of light on each sample), it shouldn't affect the amount of light data stored. Chop has a direct effect on the amount stored because it determines how many samples are used on each face. The samples are chop value units from each other (I think along the world axes, I need to double check that).
To reduce the amount of light data, you need to either remove some of the flicker, or make faces that have the flicker completely dark except for the flicker effect--if they're partially lit when the flicker is dark, they're storing the amount of light when it's dark plus the difference that the flicker makes when it's fully on.
Ollj, have you tried using the 2nd 1.7p2 beta that I sent you with the 6MB max lighting amount? I heard back from gaggle this morning (the other person over the light limit that had the node count corruption bug), and evidently the second version that I sent you guys successfully compiled his map that was over the 4MB limit. If you're at 125%, that's about 5MB of light data, and you might be able to use 1.7p2 to compile without a change. You'll need to test the resulting map on some low end machines to make sure that raising the limit doesn't have any side effects, but so far it seems like a viable solution. PM me if you need the link to the 2nd beta again.
My map, Titan 6, is currently using 81% of the light data/memory/whatever it's called, and I'm quite concerned since the map is only just nearing 50% complete.
How can I keep it under the limit? Would using the same light styles from now on keep it at bay? Or would I have to go back and change my flickering lights back to regular lights? (I haven't used flickering lights for the whole map, but some sewers and vents use these effects)
Also, raising this 6mb limit, are there any known side effects that this could have in the game? I'm planning on submitting this map for official inclusion, so would I be breaking the map submission rules if I used more than the 4mb limit?
My map, Titan 6, is currently using 81% of the light data/memory/whatever it's called, and I'm quite concerned since the map is only just nearing 50% complete.
How can I keep it under the limit? Would using the same light styles from now on keep it at bay? Or would I have to go back and change my flickering lights back to regular lights? (I haven't used flickering lights for the whole map, but some sewers and vents use these effects)
Also, raising this 6mb limit, are there any known side effects that this could have in the game? I'm planning on submitting this map for official inclusion, so would I be breaking the map submission rules if I used more than the 4mb limit? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->How can I keep it under the limit? Would using the same light styles from now on keep it at bay? Or would I have to go back and change my flickering lights back to regular lights?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you use the same light styles on a new spot, it will add more data to the file. If you change your flickering lights back to regular lights, it should drop the total amount of light data used by the map. I go into what data is stored and why flickering lights add data in <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=22914' target='_blank'>this thread</a>.
One thing to keep in mind is the total amount of surface you're trying to light -- if your map has grandly scaled simple architecture, you simply won't be able to avoid hitting this limit. Ollj's map looks to be pretty huge. Most maps have enough structural complexity to hit other limits first.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Also, raising this 6mb limit, are there any known side effects that this could have in the game?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There aren't any <i>known</i> side effects, but this hasn't really been tested in any depth, either. I have one report back saying it worked fine, but I'm not confident about the limit yet. It's currently a use-at-your-own-risk change--the code claims 4mb is an arbitrary setting.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I'm planning on submitting this map for official inclusion, so would I be breaking the map submission rules if I used more than the 4mb limit?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good question -- playtester/dev input anyone?
Rather disturbing. :X
Rather disturbing. :X <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oooh! Oooh! A potential problem to fix <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
In all seriousness, I have 2 NS-related projects on my plate to finish first, but I do want to look in depth at the routines to see how this can be improved.