Addicted to Optimization

Ookay... I came from cinema right now and on my way home... I started
seeing VIS leafs and world brushes and func_details and prop_statics...
is this normal :S I am like going completely nuts, seeing level objects
inside REAL world... VIS brushes and all... when I go along the street,
I think how I could make the world render faster and make it not kill
the VIS :o I am thinking of what could I make a func_detail, where to
place HINT brushes and which objects are models instead of brushes....
suddenly everything became bright about optimization...

now, here's my question: is this NORMAL? Because I feel as if I've gone completely out of my mind!

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HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee

It's normal in the mapping community. You just learn to live with it.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

eventually you'll automatically filter out the things that wouldn't be good for mapping, and only dwell on effective but simple structures. at least that's how it's gone for me.

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i eat paint

Please forgive the forthright nature of my response. It is meant
in good humour. I have found, much to my chagrin, that the
Snarkpit can still be a relaxing way for a knotted wordsmith to
unwind. Sometimes it's good just to take a random topic and
pontificate. At least it gets the words flowing, like stetching
cramped muscles.

There are two probable answers. I am sorry to say that neither
answer pronounces favourably upon your condition. In either case,
help should be sought, though the nature of help must be quite
different between the two situations.

<div style="margin-left: 40px;">

</div>
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Answer One

<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></span></span>Yes,
you really have gone out of your mind. Your obsession with
computers and mapping have caused psychological imbalance. You
really do <span style="font-style: italic;">see</span>
all these bizarre things, in the same way that some people really do
see fairies at the bottom of the garden (the garden of the sanitorium,
that is).

<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Answer Two

</span>No, you are still entirely sane. Rather, your
problem is that you have become so painfully geeky that your sense of
identity depends -- and therefore also your appraisal of self-worth
depends -- upon styling yourself, defiantly, as a proud nerd. In
order to obtain social recognition, you visit places like this, where
people with similar interests gather.

You don't really perceive these phantasms of mapping; rather, you
pretend that you perceive them. You imagine them, and then go
further, by seizing upon this imagination as proof of the extent of
your obsession with mapping. "Surely," you think to yourself, "if
I'm seeing these things it means I am a mapper of extraordinary
obsession". And, parenthetically, you perform the deduction: "If
I am a mapper of extraordinary obsession, then I am extraordinary".

<div style="margin-left: 40px;">In passing, note that this deduction
form, which is called adjectival detachment, is not valid logic.
For example, from the statement "Coal is becoming a white elephant",
one cannot deduce that "Coal is becoming white". Conversely, from the
statement "This is a fake ming vase", one cannot deduce that "This is a
ming vase".

</div>

In doing this, you seek to generate both a distinction in the community
("Look, I'm special") whilst at the same time identifying yourself with
its core values (commitment to, and love of, mapping). This is a
sensible course, because the community is likely to respond
sympathetically towards your pretended question ("Am I going mad?")
with reassurances that it happens to all the best mappers, that we are
all a little bit mad here, and that it's only a sign of your
outstanding commitment to mapping.

There is nothing concerning about using your imagination in this way,
so that you think about the world around you from the point of view of
mapping. It can be a valuable exercise in visualisation, and you
might get some good ideas from it. Imagination is fun and
healthy; we should all do more of it.

What is concerning, however, is your need to pretend that you actually <span style="font-weight: bold;">see</span>
these things. You need to do this because then it creates an
excuse for you to generate a topic on the discussion boards, with the
attention focused on yourself. This is a substitute for the
social interaction which, as a self-proclaimed geek (see your website),
you so desperately lack.

Why not phone up some friends instead? It doesn't matter if
they're geeky friends, or if you do nothing but play computer games,
eat pizza, and watch cheesy sci-fi movies. These are excellent
ways to idle away your life, and I wish I did them more often.
But get out and see people, or arrange to see them soon.

Finally, may I suggest that you never seek to discover, "Is this
NORMAL?", but ask yourself instead, "Does this make me happier?"

Topical question for resident psychologist: I can't help imaging new and elaborate places to build in which people kill each other - does mapping make me violent? :biggrin:

sometimes i dream about mapping :smile: tis nice, building ur own world, letting other people suffer physics traps :smile:

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Hell, is an half-filled auditorium

Around the time Half Life 2 was delayed I dreamt of getting it and was about to play it, but then woke up. I woke up very angry.

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Reckless disregard for childrens well being, women and nothing but utter contempt for other cultures.

You just learn to live with it.

I have learned to keep my mouth shut when it comes to these
matters. The only person I confessed such crazy thoughts is my
wife, and she just wrinkled her forehead and looked at my strangely, as
she usually does when I do something extremely nerdy.

She's a nerd herself, by the way. But she's just not in the same
league as me. I feel right at home at the SnarkPit. It's
populated by people who really understand me.

I can be free to be as nerdy as I want, and they just be nerdy back at me. It's such a great feeling.

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

I sometimes like to point out that reality has really lame graphics. I
even yelled out "f*cking invalid brushes!" whilst looking at a
strangely shaped pillar (it's base seemed to be something like a hexagon, except that some of
the faces were bigger than others).

Hmmz... well, I guess it's perfectly okay to think in such manner. To
try to optimize the world :biggrin: (it seems my obsession is optimization...
being so troublesome with it but now it all made sense... :razz: how the
world is filled with huge cubes and valid world brushes... yes, Andrei,
I have, myself, too, thought, that "heck! bad brushes" and "where the
f**k is a player spawn point?) I also imagine the surrounding area in
different games, such as CSS or HL2DM and how people are playing...
well, it was introduced today anyway. So... I see hammer things
everywhere now :razz: I'm not going to be worried about it :smile: I find myself
being very happy with it.

oh, and I forgot to mention... I've gone completely crazy in my maps -
with optimization :razz: I started to optimize like an old-timer now...
damn...

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HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee

I haven't stressed optimization that much I guess, though I've gone far with my maps sometimes.

Now, I think a map should play well, but sometimes optimization isn't
worth the time spend on it. I'm no perfectionist with it anymore. More
important is that the map plays well, looks good and that it's fun.

I guess it's a stage that mostly every mapper goes through at some
point. It's important, yes, but shouldn't become the final goal. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

I like optimization :razz: (now)... I used to hate it but really - when I
came home today everything became bright... I could see the boxes and
all filling all the empty space and I was thinking "damn, this world
kills VIS!" and as I said... I started seeing VIS leafs and HINT
brushes and func_details everywhere.. I just think I've done too much
mapping... and now I'm addicted to optimizing :razz: I'd SO like to
optimize something... does anyone have a map I could optimize?

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HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee

You are insane, but normal.

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Better to be in denial than to be human.

Bill Gates understands binary: his company is number one, and his customers are all zeros.

Praise the lord, gollum has spoken!!! We are not worthy.

*bows down

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Posting And You

well, is anyone here really sane?

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'Tonight, we dine in hell! I hear the buffet there is to DIE for' - Leonidas I

oh, and I forgot to mention... I've gone completely crazy in my maps -
with optimization :razz: I started to optimize like an old-timer now...
damn...

i can still distinguish between pc and real world, is that a good thing or bad thing ?!

on a serious note, about optimization. In my older maps i used to
optimize afterwards when i saw that r-speeds/fps wasnt good. Nowadays i
have a "holistic" approach to mapping:

• when designing layout i immediately plan in vis blocking / hint brushes

• ALL new brushes i make, i always cover in nodraw texture, and only retexture the visible faces

• the only thing that i do afterwards is making every brush that is

inside the map, and doesnt cast shadows, into func_detail/func_brush,
provided 2 consecutive brushes dont cut into eachother.

it actually saves me time like this.

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These words are my diaries screaming out loud

I do plan out performance in my layout somewhat too, I'm also used to
func_detailing a lot of stuff, but any further than that it doesn't go
with me right now.

I'm just building a very basic architecture at first, to get an idea of
what the gameplay will be like, and a performance check to see where I
can still add detail without making things inplayable.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Nah madedog your normal!
Why on holliday I saw giant structures and wondered how I could make it into a map :biggrin:

I spose it's a nice skill to share :razz:

What's really funny is how terrible 'texture alignment' is in real-life. Seriously.

Gollum, I was thinking the exact same thing. /me loves j00.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

Me too man, me too :biggrin:

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

file>new.

Yes. And today I managed (when I was going to IT College [a funny
co-incidence, isn't it? my initials are I and T...]) to spot a
weird-looking building and thought "wtf? bad vertex manipulation".

Oh, and hab... I have imagined many places in a game... i actually do
it most of the time even before... I thought hmm... it would be fun to
make huge roads which would take lots of time to drive through...

Anyway, yeah, I got myself a map I'm optimizing this minute :razz: It has
lots of clipping to do now :razz: damn mappers who can't optimize their map
on-the-go... noobs... not to mention i never did any optimization
before... :razz:

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HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee

There have been so many times where I've been inside an interesting
structure and wish I had my digital camera with me so I could take a
bunch of shots for later. There's a new library that was just
built at my school and it is awesome inside.... and out.

I just tried finding images of it online but to no avail, and my digital camera chord is missing so no dice.

You know what drives me crazy? Lack on inspiration. I often make
something nice and don't know what to do next. It's driving me insane!
Guess i'm a prefabber at heart.

Andrei said:
You know what drives me crazy? Lack on inspiration. I often make something nice and don't know what to do next. It's driving me insane! Guess i'm a prefabber at heart.

Yeah I'll make a cool elevator or a cannon or something but then have a hard time thinking of a level to make that usually takes me a great deal of time compared to the thing I made it for.

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Reckless disregard for childrens well being, women and nothing but utter contempt for other cultures.

Jinx said:
What's really funny is how terrible 'texture alignment' is in real-life. Seriously.

Yeah, especially the wallpapering at my Dad's house. Perhaps one strip of wallpaper is aligned to 'world' and the adjacent one to 'face'? :biggrin:

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

Huh! I'm getting my addiction a bit satisfied now :biggrin: I'm getting lots
of requests to optimize a map :smile: Two maps completed with no sleep at
all :smile: One of them was de_zakat, a map my man made, the other was the
hl2w infamous cs_tirefactory... both completed successfully :smile: Now i'm
off to work with a mexician map...

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HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee