I have a question for the team or anyone who has been developing games. How much stuff have you crammed into an area without it 'lagging'. I have seen a wide range of open areas with pictures. I could be wrong but it doesn't seem that people have been making very maps that are crammed with details and scenery. Has there been anyone who has done that without the frame rate skyrocketing? looking for some tips of how you did it.

Also is one of the goals of the FPSCR to be an open world type of map editor now? and will it get to the point where it can be crammed with scenery?

All depends on the poly count of the objects really. Also if they are making use of LOD. For the assets I'm working and have worked on, I'll be going back to them to add LODs.

So far its not planned to be an open world editor but with some skilled map design, you can make your game feel like an open world game.

The game still runs with a whole lot of stuff in it. TONS if you compare it to FPSC Classic...

However, how this will run and look once whe have a version closer to a final release? No one can tell yet.

Optimization is key to that in ANY engine. A great deal of that involves meshes and textures, and, like Teabone said, LOD can go a long way toward that. Much of that, furthermore, is beyond the skill level of the average person wanting to simply populate a map with hundreds or even thousands of objects and then go do battle in it. If Reloaded achieves that capability without further optimization on the user's part, I will be amazed. Most of the models that I have seen don't use LOD, yet I think it should be standard requirement for higher-poly meshes at least, and if it raises the price of the model due to the extra time involved, so be it. I'm willing to pay for it. As far as the engine being an "open world" engine, it pretty much is at this time, but only for two reasons as of the current beta: Lighting is poor both inside and out, and the AI can't navigate indoors. The next beta should fix those issues. Just check out this week's newsletter:



http://fpscreator.thegamecreators.com/wordpress/?p=832



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EDIT: I just read Wolf's post and I guess I misunderstood what you meant by "open world". I thought you meant "outdoors" exclusively! LOL, sorry! Now I'm not sure what exactly you meant. But when we get the ability to have multiple levels and move between them at will, then I guess anything is possible. As for infinite terrain, if that is what you meant, that has been discussed in other threads but I'm sure that would be a ways off if it ever came to fruition. I left my original post intact just 'cause.

There can be a reason a model has no LOD levels, the most obvious being that it is already as low as it is going to get and people should remember that before writing off models that don't use it. There is no point in adding for unwanted or non required detail either just to add more to a model so you can say it has LOD.

If the basic silhouette of a model is trashed by removing poly's just to provide LOD by artists who feel they have satisfy the market who are beginning to insist on this then it is not going to go well, just as I see insanely sized 2048 textures being used on small and insignificant props for scenery, even the normal and spec being huge where it isn't so important. Poly count is not such a huge issue in Reloaded, it is texture memory/display and shaders that are killing the framerate.



If you look at removing terrain you will gain at least 300-400% increase in frame rates, this removes terrain from render only and poly count/surface collision remain., I see no major difference in frame rates when adding a lot of entity's into a level so LOD is not as important as seems to be believed and I reckon culling is more effective. If you think about it rationally insisting that models have LOD levels is only going to lead to an artist adding faces to a well optimised model to satisfy the market for LOD and this totally defeats the purpose of game ready models when you will add high,mid and low poly into memory. You then have a model with approx 75% increase in poly count in memory to load/unload where it is really unnecessary. I see no point in creating LOD unless it is a model I would expect to see a large number of or constantly in view in a wide open outdoor level. Culling will deal with it if it is indoors or hidden by other entity's such as buildings in an outdoor scene. Or at least it will once culling is working as it should in Reloaded.



You would be better to concentrate on optimising your textures with Reloaded than worrying about the LOD levels for what should be a low poly game ready model in the first place, I feel some are getting the wrong idea and that Reloaded is being touted as some sort of beast that can handle graphics and poly counts better than other engines which need optimisation as much as anything else on the market and that LOD is the catch all answer to sustaining performance.



There are of course some models which benefit greatly from having LOD levels and so long as they don't 'pop' when transitioning through levels can be really effective but like any game model it isn't required or even desirable for ALL entity's and artists shouldn't get too wrapped up in creating these nor should they believe they can go nuts with high poly counts because they have lower LOD's to 'compensate' with.

That was actually kinda my point, but to say it should be a "requirement" was quite reckless on my part. I have never created anything worth selling! LOL.



As an afterthought, I have combined/merged meshes and their respective textures to build worlds with fewer pieces/draw calls. I believe that is a much better approach to world building, albeit tedious. (at least to me, I'm not very fast at such things, nor do I know of a faster way)

No worries, I just feel it is being a little 'pressed' on artists to provide LOD where it isn't necessary and in fact undesirable if all models were to use it. It is not something I will be spending time on myself with models unless it actually has benefits



Any models I have created with LOD use it because it works well for them and not simply because I think they should have it as a matter of course. Any models I have created that don't have LOD levels are like that because I simply cant make them any lower or any reduction in face count would be too minimal to have any benefit.

Besides How do you apply LOD to a square entity, or a grouped mesh entity ? I consider it pointless to apply LOD when you already apply optimizations and have pushed the models as far as they would go, besides I ignore the people generally complaining it must have LOD.

I am however guilty of using large spec and normal maps :p

But rolfy has the right idea

Rolfy,

you raise a very good point! I always use 2048 textures! Unless its something small like a small box or a switch, but, that is pretty much the norm for my texture size!

I think I need to readdress my models and look at the sizes of the textures. I never think of optimisation when it comes to the texture sizes. I am quite strict on poly counts, but, never think of textures. I initially started to use 2048 with the intention of commenting in the description of the model, stating that the texture is that large, so, the developer can resize as they see fit, but, I never actually made a note to that effect.

What size would you normally make the individual maps? Or do you adjust on a per model basis?

Cheers

Jay.