#1 2014-09-14 00:12:19

gaya
Member

Huge exteriors

How well does Tesseract handle huge exteriors? I'm interested in making some outdoor levels, with a large terrain as base, but i'm not sure if the engine handles that well. Is it similar to Cube, which only handles interiors well?

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#2 2014-09-14 02:05:00

Pritchard
Member

Re: Huge exteriors

Larger map sizes cause things like movement to bug out. That said, the gameplay of Tesseract is not well suited to long distances either.

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#3 2014-09-14 13:40:06

ImNotQ009
Moderator

Re: Huge exteriors

While the engine is capable of large environments it lacks any sort of LOD that would help the framerate. The engine always renders everything with all the details no matter the distance. It's not a problem if the map has a lot of occlusion because the engine simply doesn't render stuff that is not visible for you.

Also as Pritchard stated *very* large maps cause some problems with z-buffer precision. It generally makes you and general geometry around you a bit shaky.

Last edited by ImNotQ009 (2014-09-14 13:42:20)

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#4 2014-09-14 17:35:52

Calinou
Moderator

Re: Huge exteriors

ImNotQ009 wrote:

Also as Pritchard stated *very* large maps cause some problems with z-buffer precision. It generally makes you and general geometry around you a bit shaky.

Actually, it's not caused by map size but by coordinates. If you start a size-16 map and move at coordinates near 0, 0, 0 (which is not the center of the map, but a corner in the bottom) precision will be very good. The higher the coordinates are, the worse precision is, regardless of map size.

Use /echo (getcampos) to know your position.

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#5 2014-09-14 20:00:26

gaya
Member

Re: Huge exteriors

What are the acceptable sizes for levels, then? I mean, limits that allow me to create larger maps, but safe from the engine limitations.

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#6 2014-09-15 11:33:46

Unnamed
Member

Re: Huge exteriors

I tried it out and it seems there are no problems with map size 15, but 16 is shaky and you sink into the ground sometimes.
Map size 15 is 64k*64k. That should be a bit less than 10km in diameter. I don't think you should make a map with map size bigger than 12. It would take too much time to walk from one end to the other end of the map.

Last edited by Unnamed (2014-09-15 11:37:05)

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#7 2014-09-15 14:13:33

gaya
Member

Re: Huge exteriors

Thanks for the info. ;)

Some examples of maps i'm planning to remake on tesseract for learning:

Halo Death Island: http://hce.halomaps.org/images/files/lg … t00-54.jpg
Halo Blood Gulch: http://hce.halomaps.org/images/files/lg … ot00-2.jpg

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#8 2014-09-27 23:55:07

gaya
Member

Re: Huge exteriors

Any ideas if the terrain editor is capable of creating that? Islands with "infinite" sea surrounding them?

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#9 2014-09-28 00:16:50

BakedToast
Member

Re: Huge exteriors

gaya wrote:

Any ideas if the terrain editor is capable of creating that? Islands with "infinite" sea surrounding them?

Yes, it could be done in a pseudo-infinite manner, by making map size 14-16 and making it all water except your island in the center. Unless of course, the island is very big.

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#10 2014-09-28 01:35:14

chasester1
Member

Re: Huge exteriors

best way to handle an infinite water, is to create it in recurrent infancy (similar to how elder scrolls: Morrowind). Basically create a trigger material (probably the simplest way to do this) when a player reaches this material, it freezes the player model movement, but continues the animations. Since it is an infinite sea, you have nothing to juxtaposition your self against. So as long as the animation is occurring it will feel like to the player that they are moving farther into the ocean. This will solve having to make an infinite map or just clipping off the map. It will feel infinate but it won't have to be. Plus they player will always be pretty close to the shoreline so if they do decide to want to come back they wont have to go that far :)

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#11 2014-09-28 23:07:47

gaya
Member

Re: Huge exteriors

I'm not really worried about stopping movement, i'm just curious on how to make it infinite visually.

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#12 2014-09-29 19:07:43

RaZgRiZ
Moderator

Re: Huge exteriors

gaya wrote:

I'm not really worried about stopping movement, i'm just curious on how to make it infinite visually.

It will never be trully infinite. The best thing you can do is blend the fog with the water so it makes a nice little round cutoff, and then use the fogdome to blend the two together. If you do it right you'll see something like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s4oqo1srjrplo … 0.png?dl=0

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#13 2014-09-30 03:22:07

gaya
Member

Re: Huge exteriors

Nice trick. Thanks! ;)

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