Weird Water Bug

Right well, in those images, I slyly didn't take a picture of a lot of the water. Why? Because when I looked at a decent amount of water, my FPS tumbled down to 30. Now, I know what you will first say, "Omg, what a newbie, doesn't he realize that he has too much water in the damn map?". Unfortunatly, that is not the problem. I tried draining out the lake to a very minute amount, and that accomplished nothing. Also, in Hammer, the water texture is scaled up 3 times, but ingame, it is unscaled ( at 1 ).

And just incase anyone was wondering, the map will be for ESF (esforces.com) and no, the map has not been properly textured yet (I will use texture blending).

~Optional

are you using entity water? I think that can cause lag, especially if it is transparent.

you might try using 'world water', just a normal non-entity brush covered on all sides with a ! water texture. I think it is less likely to cause lag. its wave height is set in level properties. it has an opaque surface which blocks VIS. this is nice, because you can add some detail underwater (rocks, plants, terrain) without it adding to wpolies above.

also what are your wpoly readings? the water is down lower, maybe it is just coincidence that the fps drops when you look at it. maybe it's because wpolies are going higher.

looks interesting... reminds me of Mario or Zelda :biggrin:

Which compile tools are you using? Also, if your water is transparent, you may have too much detail underwater, so it's rendering all that stuff too. Try using the "world water" as he said, or remove some of the detail there.

Try to bring down the console and type "gl_wireframe 2". This will show you everything the engine is drawing. If you can, for instance, see through the walls or something by looking at the water, then you know something weird is up.

Optional said:
in those images, I slyly didn't take a picture of a lot of the water. Why? Because when I looked at a decent amount of water, my FPS tumbled down to 30.

not posting pics of the problem areas doesn't really help,

some pics of where/when your fps drops to 30 could.

although, with the limited views of the water, and you saying that's where the problem lies, it may be that the way you have cut the watercourse is causing multiple split faces all over the floor of your level.

entity water looks better than world water by far, but can cause issues as jinxy mentions.. use it wisely, its worth the effort to get right.. i prefer entity water, and will only use it.

At first, I used XP - Cagey's because they were my favorite. But with that water bug, I decided to use Merl's 1.7. Both gave me the same bug.

And underwater is not very detailed at all. When I went underwater and looked up at the surface, my FPS dropped down to 30 again.

What's world water? I have never heard of it. Is it a texture like 'clip' (world water isn't in the WADs I'm using)? Er, how do I use it?

Oh, and here is a picture with GL_Wireframe 2. Should the water be cut up like that so many times?

http://members.lycos.co.uk/optional3336/esfm_waterfront0000.jpg

world water, is a texture that acts like water, with no special settings, IE func_water.

that awful blue water HL is famous for is world water.

It seems like the problem is that the water is divided into far too many little squares... but I don't know how to fix this. Since you can't see through the water anyway, it sounds like a good solution to use this 'world water'. To make world water, just select your func_water, and click 'to world'... I think that is what the others are talking about.

i don't think thats exactly how its made jeff, but if it works, cool beaners

world water is water you don't have to do anything to to make it be water, you just place it and compile.. thats it.

i have found the "to world" thing to be buggy, but it may only have been cause i used it improperly.

anyways, tis worth a shot :smile:

Make sure the wave height is set to 0.

Yeah thanks, that 'world water' thing fixed it!

then mark the correct answer/s

Optional said:
Yeah thanks, that 'world water' thing fixed it!

I RULE YOU ALL

I agree that entity water with a transparency looks better, Orpheus, but except for small patches it usually isn't practical. It caused me horrible lag in Temple, players were complaining about it. And while transparencies look good, they usually play much worse. Being hidden from view is rather important when one is a sitting duck swimming. That's why I went with it in the pools in both Temple and Revenant, no fun having people shoot the hell out of you while you are helpless.

random related topic:

I had a dream last night I was playing Well in TFC, snuck into the enemy flag room via the water tunnel... except suddenly I realized some moron had made it transparent water. The whole enemy team was looking down on me armed with a variety of guns including UT2k4 weapon emplacements for no particular reason and I'm yelling into the voice comm "WHAT THE f**k MAN?!"

Okay, back to cataloguing UT2k4 smesh packs :razz:

I wish I had such vivid and exciting dreams. :biggrin:

so do I get my snarkmarks for a correct answer or what!? :dorky:

Jinx said:
so do I get my snarkmarks for a correct answer or what!? :dorky:

It's not about the Snarkmarks; it's about the music, man! :razz:

(Water gets divided like that when you want WAVES in it. If you set wave height to 0, it should probably be fine.)

2 things.

1) World water textures are defined by beginning with a ! flag. So and example texture called !Water would be a water brush when created.

2) If you're worrying about this much transparency, you don't even want to look at dod_belfort in the editor :rolleyes: you'd have a heart attack.

Jinx said:
so do I get my snarkmarks for a correct answer or what!? :dorky:

have cash fix it jinxy.. there seem to be more than one correct post tho..

sort of... but mine was first and a lot of people just restated what I said

/me does the snarkpoints dance

Jinx said:
sort of... but mine was first and a lot of people just restated what I said

/me does the snarkpoints dance

looking at your score, you better do the snarkpit mojo instead :dodgy: