Gaming Zone > All Things Gaming
Krieg, Frieden und Zombies
Vanico:
Lol, yeah, this is a human skull after he got squashed by several blue whales.
Hicks:
Holy sh... so much progress you've done here, Snipe! I'm impressed.
Snipe34:
--- Quote from: Hicks on December 06, 2012, 19:03 ---Holy sh... so much progress you've done here, Snipe! I'm impressed.
--- End quote ---
Hi Hicks! Thanks!
Hard part now, coding. Also animtrees... I do not understand them yet. (UDK AnimTree is mainly for 3p character view). There is a little coding involved but not much. An Australian, Wraiyth, is the expert on animtrees - his tutorials anyway.
Vanico, the skull will be fine after I finish it and from a distance and if you wear dark sunglasses :p
Snipe34:
Better?
and some black bucket fill helps the imagination :D
(it's a low res pic and low poly skull for least lag)
And in-game
Some news... coding still problematic but gradually improving. I'll give it a rest again and work on other aspects. There's plenty ???
Snipe34:
UDK is very different to UT2004 optimization-wise. There's no Zones like UT2004 where you section off areas. UDK you start with an open area that looks infinite, and is pretty much. With UDK the cpu can see thru BSP so LOD swapping / cache distance and Level Streaming are the alternatives.
LOD or (detail level) is you make 1 mesh for close up with hi detail and another low poly, low detail mesh for distance viewing. I think about 3 or 4 LODs are allowed. So by LOD 4 (I'd mainly only use 2 LODS) the player will be a long distance from the mesh so its details can be very, very low. UT2004 also has LOD options and particularly for anim characters.
LOD-wise in one of my UDK maps I have a whole mesh for an interior which is over 1000 polys. But soon as you step outside then that mesh swaps for a 17 poly exterior-only mesh. KFZ maps are ideal for LOD swapping since they're mainly dark or foggy maps and you can't see very far.
Cache Distance means you set the mesh to disappear after whatever distance you specify - i haven't found it effective. The frame rate at the specified invisible distance doesn't change, so something isn't working as expected or maybe I'm doing it wrong.
Level Streaming is several maps joined together which to the player may seem like 1 huge map. GOW uses that method. The map change pause can be minimal, but I've yet to try it properly with a huge map with smaller attached maps I'm working on.
Other fyi: By default in UDK for mapping only BSP has collision. There are 3 ways around no collision. Switch on collision ^^ if you can find the switches :p Or, build a collision volume into your mesh. Or, use blocking volumes. For mappers who can't make meshes, in UDK it's easy to duplicate meshes and make any changes you want to the mesh collision for your maps. UDK also comes with a collision maker but it's basic and wouldn't work well on something with many shapes - steps for example.
Light maps: I don't fully understand why they're good - but anyway each mesh has UV channels, Channel 0 is for the pic you see on the mesh and Channel 1 is for the light map. The light map is the whole pic layed out again but in no particular order except it has no over-lap. UDK DX9 makes light maps for you, but lately it often crashes in the process, dammit.
I am talking UDK but other games use these or very similar methods to try for max gaming speed.
Pic shows a Normal Mapped wall on the right - the floor also but less apparent. So it's flat meshes but the torch shows the raised bricks made that way by a normal map (You've probably seen normal maps around, they're blueish purple colour - so that wall pic is: what you see, also a normal map parallel but hidden with the height information). The wall pic is 256x256. Some textures work well with normal maps, others fail. I dunno why. The wall pic was a shit pixely texture but I thought I'd try it anyway.
btw the bot in the pic below is the 1st soldier mesh. He runs around so I can check how good his animations are. I am still working on the Sweety character finishing the hair, but it's many many pieces of hair. I only do a few sections before I fall into a coma.
full size: http://i.imgur.com/1TDBsN9.jpg
The sand - only a flat mesh. The torch hi lights the ridges in the sand as you move across it.
full size: http://i.imgur.com/Z11WjdS.jpg
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