Bounce bounce bounce

HanzGruber · September 2002

<div class="IPBDescription">How many bounces do you like?</div>Just curious what some of the "big" mappers use for the bounce setting in RAD?

I personally use 1 or 2 but if the head honchos are using a different setting...I'd like to know <img src="http://207.44.144.68/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

in fact... could people post their compile settings so we can all compare cause compile settings influence look a fair bit <img src="http://207.44.144.68/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='???'>

mine are

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Code Sample</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">
hlcsg -hullfile nshulls.txt -estimate -wadinclude ns_wad.wad -wadinclude HW_Glass.wad -chart %1
hlbsp -estimate %1
hlvis -estimate -full -chart %1
hlrad -estimate -notexscale -sparse -extra %1</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

<img src="http://207.44.144.68/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

KungFuSquirrel · September 2002

always 3 bounces. <img src="http://207.44.144.68/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

Stupid RAD started running out of patches even when I was running -sparse or -nomatrix. :-\ Lighting in Eclipse is a bit blockier than I'd like as a result. <img src="http://207.44.144.68/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':('>

Greedo · September 2002

I tend to use 4 bounces, but I've never really experimented with fewer. I don't know why.

hlcsg.exe -chart -estimate -wadconfig NS -hullfile nshulls.txt ns_lost.map
hlbsp.exe -chart -estimate ns_lost.map
hlvis.exe -chart -estimate -full ns_lost.bsp
hlrad.exe -chart -estimate -bounce 4 -smooth 80 -sparse -extra -chop 32 -noskyfix -lights lost.rad ns_lost.bsp

HanzGruber · September 2002

Greedo,

1. you should use a -full vis option cause it gives you a more optimised r_speed read-out.. sometimes r_speeds are higher but for the most part they are actually lower
2. From my understanding of bounce, the less bounces used the purer the light will be - as in, rooms will be lit only where you want them to be and there will be no splash (or bounce) of light... so the higher bounce count will mean, in effect, brighter or more averaged lighting...

[edit]I meant to ask, what are the advantages of -chop 32 and -smooth 80?[/edit]

blueman · September 2002

i use a bounce 1 :| or 2 but with more the entire rooms get totally iluminated and looks boring.

c:\jordi\hlcsg.exe -texdata 8192 -chart -nowadtextures -hullfile c:\sierra\half-life\nstr\nshulls.txt
c:\jordi\hlbsp.exe -texdata 8192 -chart
c:\jordi\hlvis.exe -full -texdata 8192 -chart
c:\jordi\hlrad.exe -texdata 8192 -chart -bounce 1 -sparse -lights C:\sierra\half-life\nstr\maps\lights.rad

i know its kinda stupid the -texdata 8192 in all but im just too lazy to erase it. <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

HanzGruber · September 2002

Greedo,

I just used chop 32 and it made my vismatrix go from 3.0mb to 14.3 mb...and also made it take SOOOOO long to compile.... I was looking for an improvement and couldn't notice.... what exactly does it do?

Wolv · September 2002

<i>I meant to ask, what are the advantages of -chop 32</i>
This halves the size of the patches (squares used to calculate shadows), increasing the resolution of your shadows to prevent jaggy shadows.
Note that this almost quadruples your patch count, probably pushing you over the limit and at least greatly increasing compile times.
I thought that using -extra also decreases the -chop size, don't know if that's cumulitive with the use of "-chop n" or not.

<i>and -smooth 80?</i>
Treshold angle for faces which are rendered "smooth" (Phong or Gourad or whatever it's called). This means that the lightmaps of different faces that join at an angle less then that will seamlessly merge, creating the illusion of "roundness".

When looking at the setups posted so far I'm missing a "-dscale 1" parameter. This will remove a bug in the compile tools, reducing the direct lighting to their true values.
When using this on an map where lights have already been placed, you'll need to increase all light values, and probably decrease your -bounce value to about 1 or 2. The resulting map looks a lot better IMO.

More information can be found <a href="http://www.valve-erc.com/content/resources/zhlt/ZHLTReference.html" target="_blank">here</a>.

Greedo · September 2002

As far as I know, -chop and -extra both will halve chop values, but for different elements. I think that there are 2 things that get chopped. Textures or lightmaps, or something, I don't really know. But I've found that -chop 32 makes my lighting look a little better.

And I am using -full for vis. <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

-smooth I use because of the obscure angles all throughout my map. I can't say I've noticed much of a difference, but then I've never really looked, and it doesn't increase compile time substantially.

I'm going to try some experimenting with -dscale 1 and fewer bounces now, as I've never really understood -dscale, and am interested to find out how it will affect my map.

Mouse · September 2002

well for ns_frigid I used no -bounce so I would get a higher contrast between the dark and light areas, and for ns_hydrosity so far I've used -bounce 8 but thats only because it's the default value. I'll probably end up using -bounce 2 or 3

Wolv · September 2002

<i>so far I've used -bounce 8 but thats only because it's the default value. </i>
Uh... since when is 8 the default value instead of 1? What front-end compiler are you using?

Mouse · September 2002

Batch Compiler v1.1.4b

but 8 might not be the default, because I rarely make new .bat fils, I just edit old ones and save them under a new name

Greedo · September 2002

Alright, I've gone through and tried out -dscale 1 and 1 bounce. I had to go through and increase the light intensity values for everything to reach a decent light level, and I did change the color of the one light, but that was just a personal thing.

dscale doesn't have much of an effect because I use mostly radiosity lighting (and I don't think it effects light_env), but fewer bounces is great. Makes it look much crisper.

Wolv · September 2002

<i>dscale doesn't have much of an effect because I use mostly radiosity lighting (and I don't think it effects light_env), but fewer bounces is great. Makes it look much crisper.</i>
That's the point of setting -dscale to 1 and increasing the light values: you relatively increase the radiosity (bounce) lighting, so you can suffice with fewer bounces, so your lighting is "sharper".

doctopepa · September 2002

am i the only one who doesn't see ANY difference besides the color of the lights?

NiM_Studios · September 2002

I use -bounce 1 since anything higher makes ns_havoc look too bright and the contrast will greatly decrease.

Greedo · September 2002

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (doctopepa @ Sep. 28 2002,04:41)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">am i the only one who doesn't see ANY difference besides the color of the lights?</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Like I said, it's very subtle, and especially moreso since those are 400x300 images. But trust me, it's very noticable if you know the map as well as, say, the mapper.

Bounce bounce bounce

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