Snarkpit Mapping Standards

If you remember, during Half-Life 1 mapping, the SnarkPit members had set mapping standards for maps. For instance, some of the members asked mappers to keep their rspeeds under 600 and the wpoly under 7000 (correct me if I'm wrong on these numbers).

I'm wondering if the SnarkPit has had any discussions lately about the best +showbudget numbers for Half-Life2 mapping.

I'm sorry if this subject has been discussed already. If it has been, please point me to the correct thread because all of the searches I did for this came up empty.

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

DocRock said:
If you remember, during Half-Life 1 mapping, the SnarkPit members had set mapping standards for maps. For instance, some of the members asked mappers to keep their rspeeds under 600 and the wpoly under 7000 (correct me if I'm wrong on these numbers).

I'm wondering if the SnarkPit has had any discussions lately about the best +showbudget numbers for Half-Life2 mapping.

I'm sorry if this subject has been discussed already. If it has been, please point me to the correct thread because all of the searches I did for this came up empty.

No, so far we have not. It seems to be to dependant on machine sizes/quality to really break it down to hard numbers.

IMO its anything that reduces it down below 20FPS, on a respectable PC. Thats just my opion though.

HL2 has none of the barriers that HL1 had that renders machine sizes moot. No matter how big your machine was if you built a piece of s**t, it was a piece of s**t. HL2 renders s**tty maps with no real problems at all.

In the end, I use my own judgment. If its s**t, no machine or author will convince me otherwise.
/ 2cents

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Orph speaks truely... There are very few boundaries with HL2.

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

But.... You really shouldn't make a map that nobody can play, thats
just stupid. If you get an average of 50 fps in HL2, you
shouldn't have to get 20 fps on a map somebody built.

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To get something to work, sometimes you just have to beat your head against the wall longer; the skin grows back, but the brick doesn't.

Source hates soup!

I generally use the FPS in official Valve maps as a rough goal. In
Overwatch, I average about 90, so I usually shoot for around that
amount. There's a lot more than r_speeds affecting everything -
physics, shaders, water...

FPS in official Valve maps

That's what I go with also. I assume if people are able to play
the official single player levels from Valve, they shouldn't have any
problem playing the custom maps.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

As I said though, it really boils down to machine size/quality.

I have two comps that will play HL2 satisfactorily, one a hell of a lot better than the other. Now understand, WINXP only really allows 60 fps unless you disable vsinc so not everyone is gonna get the same results even if they have the same general PC specs.

I feel that with HL2 it really only boils down to what YOU would find acceptable for play. So far, I have seen no maps so horribly built that my new 3500+ cannot handle it. Perhaps one exists, but I have not seen it yet.

So to answer your question Doc, I think the skies the limit. You can pretty much make anything you please. People will either like it or not. Quality of construction will always show itself. s**tty maps will as well.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I agree with CJ and Satchmo. While machines vary, as long as
custom maps are playable to the same extent of the official maps, I'm
happy. I probably average 20-40 fps on overwatch and am happy
with any custom maps that play in that range. It also helps me
judge the performance of the maps I put together. If it ever dips
below 20 I know I have a serious problem that I need to take care of.

I think that mapping standards should move out of performance and into
technique. There are so many simple things that people do wrong
when they map. I see this first had with the mosaic submissions,
1 unit thick floors... intersecting brushes, blan boxy rooms, etc.

What would be cool is if we has some kind of review thing that people
can send their maps into and we can have some people look over it
and compile a knowledge base of mapping mistakes.

or we could make a big list of tips and tricks? I remeber a great
tut over at VERC that had 50 tips of mapping, I know that I still live
by many of those tips even today.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Addicted to Morphine</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I agree with CJ and Satchmo. </DIV></DIV>

taps foots

and what the f**k am i? chopped liver?.. they basically said what i did in a condensed format. :wink:

where they pick the valve maps as a base comparison, i chose a set FPS period. I have seen some fantastically huge maps have high numbers, and i have seen the opposite.

anywho's, the bottomline is, i have no intention what so ever of getting a bigger pc JUST to run a s**tty made map.

[edit] this is old but not quite obsolete. i think we should begin another one exactly the same. ever once in a while i see a tidbit slip through the cracks and think "i should copy/paste that someplace. :sad:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I didn't mean to insult you Orph :smile: . I just thought you weren't in agreement with Satchmo and CJ because of this:

Orpheus: said:
So to answer your question Doc, I think the skies the limit. You can
pretty much make anything you please. People will either like it or
not. Quality of construction will always show itself. s**tty maps will
as well.

Oh and is that you on the site?

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Addicted to Morphine</DIV>
<div class="quotetext">
Oh and is that you on the site?
</DIV></DIV>

Yeah, I was famous.. once... only once.

whispers

the post was lightblue bud.

[edit] My condensed answer. Make anything you wish, it will show if its crap or not.

the end.

</div>

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Just make a map, I'm sure it's unlikely you'll hit limits and if you do, either its a crap map or a good one, and the good one will still probably be played regardless...

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting DocRock</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>If you remember, during Half-Life 1 mapping, the SnarkPit members had set mapping standards for maps. For instance, some of the members asked mappers to keep their rspeeds under 600 and the wpoly under 7000 (correct me if I'm wrong on these numbers).

I'm wondering if the SnarkPit has had any discussions lately about the best +showbudget numbers for Half-Life2 mapping.

</DIV></DIV>

As the others have suggested it's much more difficult in HL2 to have such rigid guidelines to try to adhere to; there are now more elements than world and entity polys which can contribute to poor fps performance.

The problem with using +showbudget as a guide is that, having, say, a large world geometry bar can be fine if few cubemap-heavy textures are used, so it would get really confusing as to the 'ideal' a map author should be aiming for.

If there was any mapping standard to be used for HL2 I'd suggest it be mat_wireframe in conjunction with any of the fps readout commands (net_graph or whatever).

Mat_wireframe clearly shows how well (or badly) constructured and optimised a level is. As long as mat_wireframe shows no big issues to address (lots of unseen geometry uneccessarily being rendered etc) and the fps command used gives a reading at least comparable to the Valve levels, the HL2 renderer will likely handle the level fine.

I would have to concur thats a good assessment you have Kev.

Thanx for further clarifying what my lack of text could. :smile:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I would also like to add that you should be fine as long as your swapbuffer levels aren't going crazy, in addition to everything being mentioned above.

I would also like to add that you should be fine as long as your
swapbuffer levels aren't going crazy, in addition to everything being
mentioned above.

Just for clarification: what causes swapbuffers to spike anyways?

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Posting And You

omegaslayer said:

Leperous said:
I would also like to add that you should be fine as long as your
swapbuffer levels aren't going crazy, in addition to everything being
mentioned above.

Just for clarification: what causes swapbuffers to spike anyways?

Swapping :razz:

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Is it too many reflective surfaces?

I believe the swap buffer goes up when there are too many potentially visible surfaces at any one location. When the player turns around, whatever that's behind the player is buffered, even though it's not within the VIS.

Have you noticed that when you turn to a highly detailed area of the map at first, the framerates would drop suddenly, but only for a fraction of a second. I believe the engine is buffering the surfaces, so that the next time the player turns around, there wouldn't be any performance hit.

That's my own hypothesis.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

basicaly I think it has anything to do with lightmaps, specail textures, alpha maps, etc.

I think we should have a run down of all the items on the +showbudget
and let the more experianced mappers give their views on the importance
of each section.

[quote=omegaslayer][quote=Leperous]I would also like to add that you should be fine as long as your
swapbuffer levels aren't going crazy, in addition to everything being
mentioned above.[/quote]

Just for clarification: what causes swapbuffers to spike anyways?

Swapping :razz: [/quote]

Gee its obvious you dont know :razz:

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Posting And You

High SwapBuffer levels are usually caused by excessive use of normal-mapped textures, I think.

I found this of the internet, I think one of the non-active members
wrote it, its really good:
http://www.student.kun.nl/rvanhoorn/Optimization.htm

http://www.student.kun.nl/rvanhoorn/Optimization.htm said:
Swap Buffers

This can be anything, from water (try reducing it to cheap water if it
is) or fire, smoke or steam, glass or other transparent textures. Apart
from reducing visibility of the leafs, try to reduce their quality or
quantity, but only if it really gets out of hands. Also, if you have it
enabled, bump-mapping is also a cause.

Someone should make a long tutorial out of it (or many short ones :biggrin: ), but in short it tells us how to optimize a map.

I also found this in my travels when I was looking for a compile error
that breaks down compile errors:
http://www.interlopers.net/errors/errors.php#2-1

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Posting And You

Yes, I think swapbuffer levels are influenced by a large number of things, especially special visual effects (though I've never had water hit me very hard- it's usually bump mapping, especially when there are rocks around)

Its lots and lots of props that get me....

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Signature? What signature!?

Even one point_light in my map makes the +showbudget dynamic light graph go up and fps down. I know it's an editing question...but why does one point_light cause such a jump?

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting DocRock</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Even one point_light in my map makes the +showbudget dynamic light graph go up and fps down. I know it's an editing question...but why does one point_light cause such a jump?</DIV></DIV>

Do you mean point_spotlight? because with that enity it emits dynamic light from it (its meant to be parented to things, and then have dynamic light come off of it), just go into the flags and check, "no dynamic light", that seems to be the problem a lot of the time.

edit: you can also reduce the impact of dynamic lights by incerasing the light map scale on the walls the dynamic light hits (ex: a scale of 64 or 32 is going to be better than a scale of 16 per-say), just use the texture aplication tool for that job.

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Posting And You