[WIP] rnl_merderet port to beta

I've been looking into this map that never saw any good action in Alpha.
The basic outlay of the map stays the same as the original maker Slaver intended but everything else is gonna see a total overhaul. I had to reset the geometry of the map cos it was in power of 4 which is way too demanding for a large map like this and when i set it to 2, all hills etc went flat
I stripped the whole map from its original props and i am gonna add them back if the FPS is going to stay reasonable but for now there are only hedges and house-props like frames etc mostly.

I am also testing a spawn-teleport system that some of you might know from Darkest Hour.
I am soon going to need few volunteers to test if the spawnblocking triggers work or not.

I finally got the map to compile with vvis in normal mode \o/ after extensive optimization.
But it still took 3 and half hours to compile
In fast mode, vvis takes 5 seconds...

It would be cool if hammer had a way to estimate the compilation time =).

What I read that if the vvis takes more then hour ( usually it should only take seconds or minutes) there is something wrong with the map and it needs optimization.

For farm I had a compilation time in like 20 mins.

I think your problem is with all the brushes in the village. Try to look at them in detail, and make them a func_detail if needed.

http://optimization.interlopers.net/index.php?chapter=func_detail

This saves a lot of FPS when you have a lot of Visleafes

I know the problem is the town and the brushes there.
I can't make them func_details because it will make visleafs larger and the game will render more props etc. at any given time in the town.

The town part is a bit of mess brush and entity wise, but i wont change it that much, I just try to make it work somewhat reasonably and then rls it.

Anyway, atm i just need to find out if the trigger system works and then it is ready for first public test rls.

A new overview pic, that is not from the latest version but still pretty accurate:


The pic is a bit dark

I also tried flipping the map 180 degrees for Axis but it felt a bit confusing:


In the background you can see some teleport doors ala. style of Darkest Hour.

I've made it so that ppl spawn in a "limbo" room which has doors that lead to certain points in the map and those doors open and close according to trigger_multiples and rnl_taskareas. The map is full of triggers in hammer

If you want to contain your visleaves, use hint brushes, occluders and all that shit.
Im not an expert witht that myself, but it should help you out


Looking good btw.

Im pro, I used some occulars on lapluie .

I have been experimenting extensively with hints, occluders and area portals.
My biggest concern fps-wise is that because the town buildings are mostly destroyed, I cant seal them with area portals that well etc. so the damn engine renders a huge amount of props in the town center, and i presume player models as well when it comes to that.

Joene, have u ever used those windows that Eglise church has?
Those are semi-transparent static_props and seem to give grey hair to me, cos they drop fps a lot when looking at them

No I have not. Following your statement, I think I will never use them

I bet those were the reason Eglise's church had a huge fps drop back in Beta 1.0 to 1.4, but now they have fixed it, i guess, or it might be that my new gpu just overcome that problem back in the summer...

If someone out there is still interested, here are the server/overview/custom_textures etc. files for merderet:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6981144/rnl_merderet_v6.rar
And the actual map:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6981144/rnl_merderet_v6.bsp

And for those interested, i think, this was the last wip build that i made:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6981144/rnl_merderet_v6_wip53.vmf

If someone wishes to continue the project, let me know. I suppose Slaver the original map maker won't mind if i forward this project so that the map will eventually be played somewhere.
I might continue making the map if and when RnL 1.6 is released.
If I recall right, i was in the process of testing the multitude of spawnblocking triggers in the map but never got to do it actually...