Hi all

Firstly I keep my hair real short so am unable to pull it out, but Naelurec has almost been thrown in the bin several times already
So this is a last ditch effort to try and sort an issue I am having when using a LOT of lights in a level.

Now I would say at the outset that I would use the light mapper for this if I could. So today I decided to do a quick test level with the new update.
The upside: it actually ran the process without an instant crash (a first on my machine for a long time),
The downside: as expected it just trashes the level - disappearing models, some parts light others parts dark, terrible banding...... for me it is without doubt GG's biggest bug - sorry

So realtime it has to be:
The Racha level for Naelurec has LOTS of lights, and they are all controlled by zones so they are not all on at the same time. The level runs in both standalone and test game at a solid 60 fps with vsync on.

To achieve this I am using AmenMoses lightcontrol script - which is without exaggeration simply awesome. If you use dynamic lights, and don't use this script, I can only say Why Not!

The current problem I have come up against is one that after a while when adding lights, some will just stop working at a random location. Once that happens, you can replace them to your hearts content, and delete as many as you want from other locations, but they will not work again at that exact location.

I thought it was the light limit, but it is not that since I can add more lights on the map, just so long as it is in another location.
Preben was kind enough to let me know that the light limit is a per mesh limit, not a per map limit.

So if I understand this correctly, any given single model can have up to 38 lights (settings fx) within its boundaries, which would accommodate a pretty large model.

Now Racha station is not huge, but fairly large, however the station is made up of lots of parts :
- the largest model being about 600 GG units square
- most are about 400x200 GG units
and no single mesh has more than eight lights within its boundaries, most only have one or two.

As we all know information on how things actually work in GG rarely exists, and if it does, it is scant to say the least

So I am just after some input, clarification, tips or insight, into how I can fix this issue. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading my wall

OldFlak....

@OldFlak Could you make a screenshot of the level from top down , using tab mode so im able to see where the lights are placed, and i will see if im able to come up with something

@Preben thanks for looking into this.

I was thinking that while they are lots of separate models maybe they just be too close to each other, they have 9 GG units between the walls.
May have to rethink the layout. Or even the models perhaps - shudder the thought!

Anyhow here be the pic of the current layout:


Maybe a new dynamic light zone marker or cube entity would work

Thanks for feedback

OldFlak....

@OldFlak if you split the object as in the pic , all the lights will work.



Anyway the limits is not really anything other then changing some defines , so i will raise the limit per mesh to 80, but im running out of time with the current update , but will let you know when its done , perhaps you could test it then

@Preben - thanks for the feedback, I appreciate you are a busy man at present. So no hurry or expectations here.

The model is already split at the area you have indicated.
Here is a pic that shows the parts making up the whole layout, just for your info in case it helps in any way to see if there is any other cause for this issue.



I think I will change the layout and see if that sorts.

OldFlak....

@oldFlak , Strange i wonder if the draw call optimizer is sampling your models again to single objects , try to run using drawcalloptimizer=0

@Preben - again thanks for you feedback

Would not have thought to try that myself - but setting drawcalloptimizer=0 fixed it!

I have some fairly large bumps on my head by now - so they can heal up, and I can press on with creating more media.

Seams quite a few are having problems with this build, but it works flawlessly for me. This level also builds and runs fine from what I can see. But haven't tried save\load game yet.

Thanks again you be the legend!

OldFlak....

OldFlak: You can edit the fpe of the object that had the problem and add "drawcalloptimizeroff=1" , then your able to change setup.ini to "drawcalloptimizer=1" again so you still get a fps increase from your smaller objects.

Thanks @Preben.
Will play with that for sure - thanks for the tip.

OldFlak....

@Preben - again thanks for your hard work.
To fix the previous problem I did as you suggested and edited the fpe of the object that had the problem and added "drawcalloptimizeroff=1" , then used "drawcalloptimizer=1" in setup.ini again - this all worked just fine.

This no longer works in April 7 2020 update, and unlike before, setting drawcalloptimizer=0 in settings does not have any effect in the new build either.

Since this may affect the soon to come alpha of MAX I wanted to let you know that the April 7 2020 update has broken the lights completely now.

This pic shows the situation now.



Thanks for reading.

OldFlak....

@OldFlak edit: please check GitHub

We did two PP builds on the 7th, check the latest from Steam and let me know if all is well, and make any comments on GitHub issues board if you still encounter the issue you describe, thanks!

@LeeBamber - thanks will check that.
Great work by the way, all runs perfectly for me, aside from the lights.

@Preben. Thanks that fixed it - man that was quick!!

Thanks both of you for all the hard work.

OldFlak....

@OldFlak Thanks for confirming .

BTW:
maxtotalmeshlights=80
maxpixelmeshlights=80

Is now possible , also check your fps , dynamic lights is now cached and are more then 100% faster , you will see the difference when you have many dynamic lights like on your level

Awesome - that will be useful, there be lots of them in Racha!

By the way out of interest, could you clarify how these two settings differ
maxtotalmeshlights=80
maxpixelmeshlights=80

Thanks again.

OldFlak....

@Preben
lol back again - perhaps I be your nemesis!

This morning the GG did another update which I guess is the Live Update (but it still says April 7b?) In this update a couple lights stopped working.
Here be another pic. The lights in yellow sections were all working when tested yesterday in April 7b, but now the red circled ones no longer work as they did before.



Changing maxtotalmeshlights=80 and maxpixelmeshlights=80 in setup fixes it (I could also exclude the meshes in those areas from Drawcalloptimizer in FPE) - so no big deal - but just thought I would let you know since they were working prior to Live Update even with maxtotalmeshlights=38 and maxpixelmeshlights=12. Did something change in the Live Update?

The build is smooth as silk by the way, thanks for great work

OldFlak....

@OldFlak I tried to switch to "release" on steam , but no update here , everything is still the 7b version here with no changes since yesterday ?.

maxtotalmeshlights=80 -- The total amount of light a mesh can have.
maxpixelmeshlights=20 -- The total per pixel light a mesh can have, after a mesh have more then 20 per pixel light all other lights for this mesh will use per vertex light ( this is faster but dont look as good ).

Ah ok, I see Lee has new thread saying the PP is out soon.
My version also is 7b, so not idea why steam did another update of the same version....

It all worked yesterday, but after updating to the same version again it had issue mentioned in previous post.
I just set the new offenders FPE to ignore drawcalloptimizer so all working atm.

Will see what happens when PP is out.

Thanks for your hard work.

OldFlak....