Questions About The Planes Optimizer

Candy_Man

Okay I havent had a chance to download these tools or read up on them so I'm not sure 100% how they are used.
Do you compile the map, per say with Zoners HLT's, and then take the compiled bsp and drop on the program and it optimizes and reduces the planes count, from there what? is the map playable from there, what else does it do, and is there any drop in quality or physical changes in exchange for the lowered planes count-I did read that it will slightly reduce r_speeds, what about the file size ect?
It shouldnt matter how i compiled it, just have a bsp to drop into the optimizer or did i miss a whole chunk here?
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feedback appreciated

Ollj

A map consists out of many polygons/faces drawn on planes.
Planes are one dimensional unlimited well planes (determined by their normal and a distance from 0,0,0) .
2 faces/polygons of 2 SOLID Walls can share the same plane even if they are far away from each other and if they have different textures.

When you create a map you have a lot of faces in the void that all create planes in the first CSG step.
During compiling the faces in the void get removed by BSP but not their planes.

Now optplns.exe checks each PLANE if one of its FACEs is visible or not. If the PLANE has no visible FACEs it gets removed.
This process makes an average 3,5mb NS map 2,6 mb big (works on ANY map) without loosing anything ingame.

When you are above the plane limit of HL and you run a map without using optplns some faces/planes will get removed and make walls/glass look ugly. brush based faced will become invisible first.
When you are WAY above the limits and [...] you might get a allockblock full error.

ChromeAngel

The standard compile tools (including Merl's and Zoner's) have the planes limit coded into them, so you have to use XP-Cagey's tools to make real use of the planes optimizer.

There is no noticable loss of quality in the finished map, which will be smaller and may have lowered r_speeds.

Candy_Man

k thanks thats exactely what i though it does, just wasnt sure of the details because i havent the chance to read too much of it since im at work, i thought id make a dummied down post for those who may not completely understand it and are new to mapping.
thanks a ton for securing my interpertation