[u1] Resurrection

[Hellscrag]

Better not get UGrief2's thread or the Interrogator is coming to your house!...

Won't he just feel guilty and purposeless and run away?

[Mister_Prophet]

Look forward to this one, W3.

By the by, what ever happened to that mappack you were working on that was meant to be a spin-off from 7B (Vandora Temple look and such))?

[WhirlWindWabbit]

Like I said, I ran into quite a bit of problems in my life, which caused me to completely drop from the community So, as far as that map pack is concerned, it will never see the light of day. But in retrospect, the idea had time to grow into something more mature, which is what I am doing now The Nali are still a focal point of this pack. One question though: WTF are nodes (technically speaking) and what's the engine's limit from them? 64K?

[UB_]

This sums it nicely about the limits.

At 30000 nodes, maps tend to draw out rebuild times, and if a level is large enough then it can be expected to start experience sudden ED crashed when surfing through the level void between sections in any viewtype besides skeletal.

At 40000 nodes, you'll begin to experience the obvious signs of UED weakening. Saves are no longer quick and take a few extra seconds, perhaps. Rebuilds can take a while, so have a music player on standby or something else to do during those lapses in mapping time. But begin to expect the fact that, by this point...your map should be done...or close to it. Because these are the last digits you will see where your map can still be (usually) stable and bugless.

At 50000 nodes, all bets are off. Much like the Zone limit issue (where 63-64 is the max zone limit, but you'll experience the bug when it only displays 40-50 zones in use) there are no longer any buffers for errors. Technically, if you're still working on a map in this node range you're building blocks on top of a landmine. This is not stable territory, and you should no longer be surprised if anomalies occur. It is possible to finish your map with a high node range of this level and have it be playable, but there is a 80% chance that even a low 50000 node range map will have some issues of some sort. If you have a map at this level and you have yet to add any significant actor use or any finished lighting...things are going to get very...very aggravating. The worst part about reaching this node level is that retracing your steps and going on a node count offensive (removing high node points, like complex brushes and such) becomes, as you'll discover, exceedingly difficult. You might be horrified how much content you have to trim to get the level down to a 30000 or even a 40000 range.

At 60000, if your map still hasn't crashed...call Guinness.

The limit is 65535.

[Hellscrag]

"Nodes" would be nodes of the BSP tree... so the more complex your BSP and the more cuts you make, the more nodes you will get. Keep an eye on the node count in the stats panel of the Rebuild dialog box.

[Nalisavior]

A key feature of the map pack will be the Nali and their magic, it's origins and their background, which I personally felt holds great potential, but was never really explored

Exactly what ive always thought! Hopefully youl make it so they will actually fight back and help u out that would be awesome. Good luck on the project looking forward to it.

[WhirlWindWabbit]

Thank you, UBerserker, Hellscrag I have a question though, Hellscrag - if BSP cuts create nodes, is it possible to reduce the number of nodes by using semisolids instead of solids? Also, UB, where di you find that? I would love to read a bit more about this.

@Nalisavior: thank you! Unfortunatelly, the Nali will play a more passive role than what you hope for, as I can not edit code The Nali background will be more story driven than action driven. But I hope you'll find it to your liking none the less!

EDIT: I found this page that covers the topic of nodes (http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:Node_Count), can anyone please recommend some other?

[Hellscrag]

Using semis for complex decorative brushes will decrease the node count, yes. However, remember the health warnings associated with semisolids: don't mix them with nonsolids, and make sure that they aren't creating extra zones in the void inside them (a known bug, which you can check by looking for different colours inside semisolids in zone/portal view - muddy brown, the null zone, is fine, but any other colour and you should redo the brush in a different way or make it solid), as you're only allowed 63 zones in a map.

[Buff Skeleton]

Don't use semisolids. At all. Unless nothing else will fix a certain problem, they are just not worth toying with. Trust me; I learned the hard way while making TLF that semisolids are the absolute worst thing you can slap all over. They operate via some kind of dark magic you just don't want to smear all over your map!

[Frieza]

I'm going to have to copy Waff's sentiments here. In the past I used to make a lot of decorative brushes semisolids and always had issues with stuff dissapearing and nasty BSP bugs, in my newest level (which features quite complicated archi) I've used solids for pretty much everything and so far it is still remarkably BSP bug free. I'm a convert .

[Hellscrag]

Don't use semisolids. At all. Unless nothing else will fix a certain problem, they are just not worth toying with. Trust me; I learned the hard way while making TLF that semisolids are the absolute worst thing you can slap all over. They operate via some kind of dark magic you just don't want to smear all over your map!

Couldn't disagree more. I use them extensively, and they've never presented me with a problem I couldn't fix as their impact is entirely local. The whole point of semisolids is that their impact on the BSP tree is minimal.

The black magic only occurs if you mix them with nonsolids (particularly zone portals). That way lies madness and badness.

Detailed maps built exclusively with solids can seem stable for ages but then die in spectacular fashion, because the BSP tree is so incredibly complicated.

Having said that, key structural geometry should always be solid.

[WhirlWindWabbit]

Detailed maps built exclusively with solids can seem stable for ages but then die in spectacular fashion, because the BSP tree is so incredibly complicated.

+1 Had this happen to me once. Trust me, if I convert semi solids to solids, the map size jumps up about 6MB and most of the map becomes a massive HOM (tried it once on a map, never going to do it again ). Simply not worth it. Although semis are quite annoying to use, agreed, if used with caution they can help a bit. I use semisolids for complex geometry mostly anyway (e.g. decorations made via 2D Shape editor), most of other things are solid. I've also tried a new approach this time, by carving out wanted shapes with substracted brushes, instead of just substracting a cube and than adding a bunch of stuff back in. I find it more stable, albeit it is a bit more work. Besides, I never use nonsolids near semis, not even if they're not zone portals.

[Shivaxi]

Absolutely agree with Hellscrag. Semi-solids are the way to go...always use them whenever possible. But like Scrag said, semi-solids and solids or non-solids just do not get along together...SO DON'T CROSS THEM. Otherwise semi-solids will probably save your life in most cases.

p.s. Oh yeah, you can't subtract out of semi-solids either lol

[Doublez-Down]

Maybe I'm a wuss, but I start out with using solids then convert those that "should" be able to be semi-solid later, testing the map as I go along. Maybe this is backwards?

[Shivaxi]

That's how I usually do it...you'd have to use the special brush every time u want to make it semi-solid right from initial build, which wastes time and also makes it permanently semi-solid which is why I almost never use the Special Brush build...why the hell does it do that anyway?