How To Decrease The Number Of Clipnodes?
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
- Every brush, except SKIP and func_illusionary adds to the clipnodes right?
- Does each of the 4 Hulls (Vis and 3 player hulls) casue its own clipnodes or just the world hull or just the player hulls or what?
- When I have a plane Wall, does splitting theese wall into 2 pieces (with different textures/tex-alignment) increase clipnode number although its still plane?
- Can filling some gaps with CLIP brushes decrease Clipnode count (because theese gaps are more plane with CLIP) ?
- Filling absolutely unreachable/unimportant areas with plane CLIP (outside a window, ceeling of the RR) decreases clipnodes, right?
- Would you suggest a higher -nodesize or not?
- Using "-cliptype precise" gives me LESS clipnodes than the other 2 new settings. Thats confusing.
- How to decrease clipnode count and how to use HINT the best way on diagonals?
- Any experience with decreasing clipnode counts?
- Does each of the 4 Hulls (Vis and 3 player hulls) casue its own clipnodes or just the world hull or just the player hulls or what?
- When I have a plane Wall, does splitting theese wall into 2 pieces (with different textures/tex-alignment) increase clipnode number although its still plane?
- Can filling some gaps with CLIP brushes decrease Clipnode count (because theese gaps are more plane with CLIP) ?
- Filling absolutely unreachable/unimportant areas with plane CLIP (outside a window, ceeling of the RR) decreases clipnodes, right?
- Would you suggest a higher -nodesize or not?
- Using "-cliptype precise" gives me LESS clipnodes than the other 2 new settings. Thats confusing.
- How to decrease clipnode count and how to use HINT the best way on diagonals?
- Any experience with decreasing clipnode counts?
Comments
If your using clipnode economy mode (default, assuming ZHLT Custom Build 1.3 or above) any non-solid entities are ignored, that includes func_rot_buttons with the non-solid flag etc. Probably non-solid special brushes are ignored as well, like those with hint and skip.
<i>Does each of the 4 Hulls (Vis and 3 player hulls) casue its own clipnodes or just the world hull or just the player hulls or what?</i>
No idea, but I don't know see how it would affect clipnode optimisation if you have to use all 4 for NS anyway.
<i>When I have a plane Wall, does splitting theese wall into 2 pieces (with different textures/tex-alignment) increase clipnode number although its still plane?</i>
I don't think so.
<i>Can filling some gaps with CLIP brushes decrease Clipnode count (because theese gaps are more plane with CLIP) ?</i>
Filling gaps with solid clipbrush should decrease your clipnode counts, so if for example you had a 3D crack in a wall which was viewable, but too small to crawl into, you could fill it with a clip brush (like cement <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> ) .
<i>Filling absolutely unreachable/unimportant areas with plane CLIP (outside a window, ceeling of the RR) decreases clipnodes, right?</i>
Yup. I'm guessing the ceiling of your RR has a lots of bumps or pipes or something.
<i>- Would you suggest a higher -nodesize or not?</i>
I think you are getting confused between clipping and vis-ing. AFAIK the -maxnodesize param affects the size of portal nodes (nothing to do with clipnodes). But I don't know what the -nodesize param is.
<i>Using "-cliptype precise" gives me LESS clipnodes than the other 2 new settings. Thats confusing</i>
Thats because Cagey is 133t <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> . You can use other -cliptype options to make the clipnode count even smaller, such as -cliptype smallest. But try to use that as a last resort.
<i>How to decrease clipnode count and how to use HINT the best way on diagonals?</i>
AFAIK HINT does not affect clipnodes, hulls and clipping in any way. Its used to improve how the engine handles visibility. Clipping and clipnodes are different from visibility, planes and r_speeds.
<i>- Any experience with decreasing clipnode counts? </i>
You seem to have the right idea with most of these points. If a player can never touch something, there is no need for that thing to be part of the clipping hull. So fill small gaps, unreachable areas, gaps behind grates etc with solid clipbrush.
I don't think so.
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oddly, i just ran into a guy on VERC who had a decrease in nodes when he made3 windows into one long piece of glass sticking thru the walls. not sure what that means one way or the other, just thought to share that.
<!--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 to decrease clipnode count and how to use HINT the best way on diagonals?
AFAIK HINT does not affect clipnodes, hulls and clipping in any way. Its used to improve how the engine handles visibility. Clipping and clipnodes are different from visibility, planes and r_speeds.
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actually a HINT cuts across the BSP tree. i assume that would also cut the clipnodes? i know it cuts wpolys until it hits the next portal....i imagine it cuts planes as well?
but i have not tested that, whether HINTS cut clipnodes & planes as well as vis leafnodes/portals and wpolys/world brushes......
<i>oddly, i just ran into a guy on VERC who had a decrease in nodes when he made3 windows into one long piece of glass sticking thru the walls. not sure what that means one way or the other, just thought to share that.</i>
Tommy14 you are correct - the reason is that brush entities generate their own clipping hull regardless of whether they are 'buried' or not (unless of course you bury them in a clip brush that is part of the entity).
This is so that moving/rotating/toggle-able/kill-able entities do not cause weirdness when they change postion in-game.
This is inconvenient, however, because most of the time the prime candidates for clipnode optimisation (ie: burying stuff in clip brushes) are complex, <i>static</i> func_walls.
The solution is to make them func_illusionaries (or flag them as non-solid with XP's latest compile tools). This discards them from the clipping hulls (you get a reduction in clipnode counts). Then of course your simpler clip brush, which is superimposed over them, provides the solidness.