New Qsg Article
ChromeAngel
Join Date: 2002-01-24 Member: 14Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-01-24 Member: 14Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<div class="IPBDescription">Compiling for NS</div> This article is intended to help you to compile your NS map. Everything from compiler basics to NS specific tweaks. I'm going to try and avoid jargon where I can and attempt to explain it where I can't avoid it. This might be a bit dumbed down for experienced mappers.
<a href='http://nsworld.ns-central.co.uk/mappingguide/appendix8.htm' target='_blank'>Appendix 8</a>
Hopefully this will help to cut down on some of those frequently asked questions, or at least give us somewhere to point them to.
Constructive feedback, corrections and questions here please.
<a href='http://nsworld.ns-central.co.uk/mappingguide/appendix8.htm' target='_blank'>Appendix 8</a>
Hopefully this will help to cut down on some of those frequently asked questions, or at least give us somewhere to point them to.
Constructive feedback, corrections and questions here please.
Comments
-nowaddtextures has been tied to some odd compiler errors, just another reason not to use it.
RAD
-coring 0.2 can be handy IF there are switichable lights.
for bounce, you might mention that a bounce of 1 or 2 gives a better starkness that NS usually has.
"Similar to the env_gamma setting in NS, in this case a lower value is brighter. 1 is the default 0.9 is a good setting for NS" - um, i REALLY thought 0.5 was the default. are you sure 1 is?
<i>is the gamma in HLRAD like the gamma entity in NS? i think there are differences....i thought the gamma entity was more of dscale and also a lock on brightness, so that previous maps would not affect lighting on later maps. and i thot the HLRAD gamma was more an overall brightening/darkening thing.</i>
I'm afraid my knowledge of -gamma is second-hand, but neither Merl or XP-Cagey picked up on that. I'll try it for myself tomorrow morning.
HLRAD.EXE -extra -sparse -oldmath -bounce 2 -smooth 80 -chop 256 -chart -estimate -noinfo -low
or
\hlrad -chart -estimate -verbose -dev 7 -extra -bounce 24 -smooth 80 -low
collected throughout the web.
You missed -cliptype, the new one. It has 5 settings - Legacy, Normalized, Simple, Smallest, Precise. Legacy is the default. Precise is the best. Smallest will reduce the number of clipnodes if you're having a problem with max_clipnodes. None of the options make any significant difference in compile time.
Also -tiny. The compile tools to drop any faces with a surface area less than this setting. It's default is .5. setting it to 0 will tell them never to drop faces to be on the safe side.
RAD:
You might want to mention -nomatrix, which can be used instead of -sparse to raise the maximum limit on max_patches even higher so that you don't have to increase the -chop. As can be expected it's a bit slower than -sparse is, especially if you have opaque entities.
There's also -texchop , which acts the same as -chop except that it only applies to texture light faces, while chop doesn't. It's default is 32.
-coring sets the lighting threshold. It's default is 1. Setting it lower will make all the lights light up a larger area and vice-versa.
-dscale <i>should</i> be set to 1, it's only because of a glitch that the default is 2.<!--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-->Due to a bug in the original version of qrad, the direct lighting layer was added into the final lighting twice. The correct thing to do is only have it in there once, but at the time too many maps had been created with this assumption and it was left in there. This has been corrected as a command line switch, to scale the direct lighting by. Using the value of '1' would generate the most correct looking maps. Using larger values, like 3 or 4, cause extremely harsh direct lighting relation to the shadows and might be of use in desert or arctic maps.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
-bounce does have a very direct affect on your rad compile time, but only if it's turned off. Setting -bounce 0 will reduce your rad compile times to 1/2 to 1/3 of what they were. However, if you already have -bounce 1 increasing it to -bounce 2 will only slightly increase your compile time.
oOTOo:
The -oldmath setting is obsolete if you have the latest version tools. and -dev 7 is invalid, -dev only goes 0-6.
If you want an example, I have lots of differect setting but here's one: -low -noinfo -estimate -extra -nomatrix -bounce 1 -smooth 90 -chop 32 -texchop 16 -coring 0.01 -dscale 1 -fade 1.1
indeed it should, but for NS maps I suggest you use values of 3 or upwards. It makes your map look that much better
oOTOo, The point of the article is that you should need to be using other peoples command lines, you cna choose your own to fit your map.
Shadowics, while -cliptype is usefull for specific situations, I don't feel it's worth inclusion in the article. If the reader needs to know about it their should be enough information in the article for them to find it for themselves.
<!--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-->All the compile tools are basically DOS (command prompt) programs<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now an extract from HLBSP.exe:
<!--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-->...This program cannot be run in DOS mode. ...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
Specific situations? There's hardly any reason not to use -cliptype precise when making a map, as it fixes various glitches in the clipping planes. I mentioned smallest because it could be useful if you run out of clipnodes, it doesn't have to be in your article. The other 3 setting are basically just for backwards compatibly as the adjusted clipping could make some areas to narrow for players to fit through.
glad to have been of service.