Will GG ever reach a point in it's development when it will not need to constantly process images that are hidden behind terrain elements? It seems this would allow for huge increases in FPS? Is this even possible, code wise, or am I hoping for something I will never see?

Something like this?



Would be nice doing so, with all items as well.

3com

if occlusion is on then it already doesn't process objects hidden by terrain.

I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert on the inner workings of GG but my experiments do not seem to illustrate this statement. It is my understanding that occlusion comes into effect only at a certain distance and has nothing to do with the opacity of terrain. If I create a map with a large continuous hill the fps reading is 418. Add 20 standard buildings just on the other side of the hill and my readings drop to 357. Occlusion is set at 100% and does not have any effect.

This indicates to me that something is being processed on the other side of the terrain and effecting the fps count. I'm confused. If I can't see it, GG should not process it.

It would be great if there was an occlusion system based on visibility not just distance. Not possible?

With building behind terrain

With no buildings behind terrain

As far as i know, Occlusion isn't based on distance, its based on polygons/faces being between you and an entity, entities dissapearing at a distance is becausr of draw distance via camera distance and to an extent the LOD feature.

If you really want to see clearly
what the occlusion slider does and
the difference it makes..
start a map and aim your player at a scene with a lot of items in it
both close and farther away....
the press tab...tab......then verify your number of visible polygons
with the slider at 100% then all down to 0%.
On any of my average size maps the difference will show at
100% = 600000 polys
0% = 800000 polys
So the difference seems to be quite apparent in the poly count , if not in a directly
visible to the eye way.
Also..try this....
Press tab...and see FPS count..then tab again and set occlusion to 100%
press,,,tab.tab to see FPS again...then
do the same and see FPS with occlusion at 0%
for me with
occlusion = 0% -----FPS = 79
occlusion = 100%--- FPS = 118

So...it does seem to make quite a difference...even if NOT visible to the eye..and that should be a good thing
since players wont perceive a quality difference thru the game.

Am I wrong in interpreting it this way ?

Thx

UNIRD12B

@UNIRD12B
You are right. I have run similar test to what you suggest and I think I have a pretty good understanding of the benefits of occlusion. Yes this is a good thing but not a substitute.

I don't think occlusion and or draw distance have any influence on the condition of terrain obstructing items not visible being processed.
The reference to "Distance" as being an element of occlusion was incorrect as pointed out. Perhaps an over simplification of a process. That aside, I was trying to illustrate a simple fact that entities hidden by terrain are processed and do effect fps counts. Occlusion is not a substitution for not processing hidden entities. Processing these hidden elements is the major influence on what sometimes appear to be strange fluctuations in fps counts.

I was just wondering, out loud I guess, if there might be another way...
This is not meant to be critical of GG. Sometime my inherent simplified logic gets in the way of reality.

hmm yes appears i was wrong, definitely something that should be added then.

Terrain in all my tests has not affected occlusion. Only entities are included in the algorithm. This is one area the terrain suffers in and the reason disabling it does wonders for performance. There was quite a bit of work done on occluding terrain with terrain as far as I know, but I am by no means certain if this was ever introduced. It would work wonders for GG if the terrain was less resource heavy. I've run maps over 4 times the size of GG in AGK for instance, looking nice and running really smooth. Way faster than GG does, although obviously, GG has several other things ticking away to slow things in comparison to the AGK example. Terrains are without doubt a hog at the moment.

For tests of polygon count in GG I recommend the following. Hit F11 to get your options up, disable both water and the terrain. Now hit tab to get your reading. You will see your actual object poly counts and how the occlusion is affecting them a lot easier as both water and terrain add polygons When walking around a level I can clearly see the polygon/draw count and how GG loads up segments around you as well as the distant objects. Very useful for optimising a level

@smallg

Do you think it would be possible for lee to make the terrain an ocular to hide unseen entities from processing.?
If this sounds dumb, just remember, I have already admitted I don't know much about what makes GG work and may be living in a dream world.

Depends how the system is set up but yea should be possible.
In the mean time we can hide walls or something inside the hills to force occlusion to work... Might be a bit time consuming but would be worth it I think for cluttered areas, the rest you can get away with with a reduced camera distance.