[Map] cutec v1.6

[Dratz-_C]

raiden and qreeves,
Today I took out a large amount of ornamental geometry. Maybe I can replace some of it with a couple of existing or custom textures. I turned sets of stairs into ramps. I moved 4 jump pads to make them function properly. I fixed the light at the red base. The file size is down from 3.7 to 2.7 megabytes. When I test the map my framerate is beginning to climb but my minimum and average framerates still are 10 frames too low. Furthermore, the 1 to 2-second pauses are still present so I will need to research what is causing it, be it one or a combination of waypoints, particles, scrolling textures, excess triangles or something else. I'll search the Red Eclipse forum for anything on this problem. Alternatively, the Sauerbraten site may have some information on this matter. Next time I'll replace the duplicitous trim lighting with something more efficient.

cutecopti_1-0-9.zip

Cheers

[Ulukai]

Nice work Dratz-C For the hiccups, I suggest you load the map without waypoints and see if they are still present. If not, do the waypoints all over again and try not to overdo them. Then see what happens.

[raiden]

Hint: indeed, the waypoints could cause the frame-freezes. I remember that I had not the problems, when I played the original map without botwaypoints. Using waypoints in it's most effective way and minimal use of, still gave hiccups again in result. I tested that several times already. In conclusion the freezes seem to have nothing to do with the overall framerates.
Maybe the combination of waypoint pathing and teleport entities could have to do something with that ?

[Dratz-_C]

raiden and qreeves,
I replaced more intricate trim including the lights with bold versions. I've also made some geometry more plane in the bases. I've tweaked four more jump pads, by and leading to the center area. I've fixed a geometry error. I've reduced the file size by a little over 200 Kilobytes this time. I've attached the map archive for cutecopti_1-1-0 to this post. I have not tested it yet. I'll see about replacing the trimmed wall paneling and making some corners less detailed. After my framerate is satisfactory, I will troubleshoot the 2 second freeze problem.

cutecopti_1-1-0.zip

Cheers

[raiden]

I'm anxious in which direction this goes.

[ballist1c]

I'm anxious in which direction this goes.

+1

[Dratz-_C]

raiden and qreeves,
I have economized the geometry involved in curves for both bases. I've replaced the trim for 4 teleporters with something more efficient. I've conformed 4 door heights to standard convention. I've made efficient use of texturing and thus reduced the triangle count for 4 platforms in the bases. I have reduced the file size 163 more kilobytes this time. I still have to test the map. I will focus next on replacing the wall panel ornamentation, which is why some of it is spotty for now. After that I will work on the center area. It is close to 1AM now.

cutecopti_1-1-1.zip

Cheers

[raiden]

Have it.

[D.A.M.I.E.N.]

Even when lots of details and nice geometries are missing on this optimalized version, currect look is still epic with the neon lights. And it is well playable, since there are no more hard framerate drops. Well optimized.

[Dratz-_C]

raiden and qreeves,
I have replaced the wall panel ornamentation in the bases with a bold, team-colored equivalent. I've replaced the detailed trim around the teleporters with something more efficient. I've made the translucent flooring by the teleporters opaque. I've moved 4 and introduced 8 new weapon spawns. I've added defend-the-flag areas in the base vaults. I've lit each weapon spawn with the appropriate color light. I've made shooting the basket bomberball more involved than before. I've made a new waypoint file from scratch that is 13 kilobytes with the old one being 18. I've reduced the map file size by 118 kilobytes. My next focus will be the center area. It's 1:45AM now. The new version, cutecopti_1-1-3 is attached.

cutecopti_1-1-3.zip

Cheers

[Dratz-_C]

raiden and qreeves,
In 1.1.4 I've added a back ladder to the top of each base to aid bot movement as they sometimes do not use teleporters as much as they should. I've also added a couple of weapons to those areas. I have adjusted the waypoints to match the additions. It's 2AM. The map is attached as is a song prototype I am recording for Red Eclipse and perhaps this map.

cutecopti_1-1-4.zip

Red_Eclipse_Song_Prototype.zip

Cheers

[raiden]

Hey Dratz-_C, I'm not sure about your version. One the one hand I see the whole work you put into this map. The framerates could be highly increased. This mission is nearly accomplished (except the short freezes). So this version is surely more an official release candidate then my last one: very well done. On the other hand the map isn't the same anymore (the big trianglewalls in the main bases disturbs me a bit, also the choices of texturing for the pads, especially jumppads, the ladders (I don't know)). Some details could be solved in a better/nicer(texturing and some issues I realized) way.

The idea for the map was to create a futuristic arena styled map like an imagination of a virtual battleground settled in the cyberspace (the "Tron" movies and diverse scifi books gave me that idea). Because of that I used so many portals (like virtual doors) and laserbeams, etc.. Although I like your guitar play and your idea of an individual map soundtrack (I make music too, when I have the time ), I don't think that it fits the theme of the map very well. Maybe I'm involved into this map too long, or I'm looking from a too subjective perspective, but I think we need to work a bit more on the map to finish it. Shortly said: I would appricate it to get some more opinions and feedback from the community to the mentioned points, for finishing.

(PS.: Ladders, teleports and bots: I could solve this, by deleting and rearrange parts of the waypoints as often, until it worked. But I don't know whether you meant this.)

[TristamK]

Dratz-_C , it's good that you play on guitar , and yes , i like a hear a guitar music but i think current version of song isn't good for this map...

[Dratz-_C]

raiden and qreeves,
In 1.1.5, the center uses fewer triangles now and I have calculated a PVS cull at 64 (about 5000 cells). I notice a higher overall framerate now. Give it a try. The song was just something random I came up with and was not really meant for this map. The bots are using some of the teleporters well such as the ones on the side platforms and the ones at the top of the bases. However, they are not using the teleporters leading to the top areas or the upper side areas. They just use the sets of 2 jump pads to get to the upper side platforms and now the ladder to get to the tops. As an alternative to the ladders, I could try jump pads to get bots to the tops from the upper side platforms. I tried this from the very bottom and bots went flying off in every direction to their deaths but at a higher starting point it might just work. If I can get bomberball to work on the bases' defend-the-flag areas, I added I think I can remove the triangular bottom shield. I may want to also make the primary capture flags up on that level. It would just mean that players would have to travel the bases more to capture the flag, which I think is good. I can capture the flag easily and without working at it. I would keep the previous primary flag as a defend-the-flag area. I want to add some weapons near the player starts on the front decks of the bases and the center deck. I will change these things, delete and regenerate the PVS cull and see if the long freezes are still present. If they are, from my testing it appears to be the particles on the jump pads and portals. Hopefully the PVS cull will take care of the pauses but I am not sure this will be the case. I'll let you know. As for the theme of the map, for the low-performance community, I would rather for it be smooth and fun rather than unplayable but pretty. If I have room between 30 and 60 frames a second, I will consider using that performance cushion for more detail.

cutecopti_1-1-5.zip

Cheers

[Dratz-_C]

raiden and qreeves,
I've found the source of the freezes with careful testing. It is the teleports. The particles on the pushers work just fine. I just played an entire game of multi defend the flag with 15 bots free of those pauses. The framerate is on the low end of where I would want it to be at times with so much of the map being visible at once. The Potential Visibility Set helps when it is able but not when one base can see the other base. Under this teleport-free constraint, I will attempt to rewire the map for pushers, ramps and ladders. On the bright side, I think getting rid of the base-to-base teleport is a good thing for capture-the-flag and bomberball. Eliminating the teleports should also prevent players from becoming disoriented by them. I'll let you know as soon as I have something together that is more practical than my working initial test version.
Cheers

[qreeves]

I dunno, raiden already expressed concern over losing the proper "feeling" on the map. Why exactly do the teleports create a freeze? Seems like something that needs to be fixed on my end.

[Dratz-_C]

qreeves,
When I eliminated 1 thing at a time, taking out the teleports stopped the pauses. Perhaps there is a performance hit when bots and players appear in new places in a large map without much occlusion. I would love for you to reproduce and fix that.
raiden and qreeves,
For now, until there is a fix, I've reworked the map for no teleports. It is not what you nor what I want but it runs with no pauses. Thus, consider it a test version to find out if there are no pauses for you and whoever you can find who has a low-performance computer. I've also added some weapons to the areas without any, adapted the waypoints, eliminated the triangles that you didn't like, and switched the CTF and BB affinity locations for more length and challenge

cutecopti_1-1-7-1.zip

When the map is running as well as possible, the design is solid and the teleport pause issue is fixed we'll work together to assure and improve the map's correspondence with your vision.
Cheers

[raiden]

Ok, Dratz-_C, I'll test it, but later, because I'm on the move and writing from the mobile. Thank you.

::::edit::::

I'm at home now, downloading...

[raiden]

Hi Dratz, I tested version 1-1-7. My framerates varies between ~50-180 Frames per second overall. The freezes itself seem not to be gone. They are still present, but are harder to be perceived. So I still suppose that this has something to do with the waypoints for the bots (concerning to my experiences and tests)? Another problem is the changed layout in play: the player has barely a reason to reach the top of the bases now.

Although this could be very annoying for you, I would suggest to take the 1.1 version of the map or one of your first tries and do the following: taking all of your ideas for increasing the overall frames (no alphalevel for the platforms, reduced lightprecision, 2d instead of 3d pads, overall reduced geometry details; together with your bettered functionality of pushers), combine that with new ideas (a change of the fogdistance var could help maybe for examble) and make a brandnew top version of cutec (even if this wouldn't be the first try). We would let the waypoint file out at first, to have a possibility of comparison, because of the freezes. After this we have to find a way to implement them careful, avoiding that problem. Also we had to find a way of a useful labor division. That means to hold contact (here maybe) and to arrange in a good way. For me that would mean to find ways to free time, which is not easy at the moment and the next weeks.

This is only a suggestion not a must. I'm grateful for your help. You did a good job and I would like to still involve your ideas and work. All of this is usefull and helps to find a better way for the mapping process, step by step. However you can tell your opinion here, you decide also like me. If we can't finish the map, ready for an official release, it will stay as it is or the "pitiful" qreeves has to sacrifice his worthwhile time .

[Ulukai]

On canals I'm using teleporters as well, and they work without hiccups. I also have a TON of waypoints (not only the obvious routes, but multiple runs in each possible direction) and they don't cause slowdowns either. So what I'm saying is that it's probably not the amount of waypoints or the teleporters, but if you are certain that the phenomenon is not present when playing without waypoints the problem is maybe waypoints on weird locations? Or in the air with the long jumps? I dunno...

You might wanna test by not creating waypoints for the whole map, but simply have a bot follow you only through all jumppads and teleporters, see if it happens then.

[raiden]

Good idea, Ulukai *ty*.

[Dratz-_C]

Hi raiden and qreeves,
We'll work it out somehow. It will just take time, which I have less of now that my fall semester at school has started.
Cheers

[Dratz-_C]

Hi folks,
I have been trying to improve my minimum framerate. I added good occluders to cutec 1.1 and generated PVS cull at 64. It took 6 hours, I think because of the ornamental geometry. Even after this measure, the 1- to 1.5-second pauses were a map-breaker for me and my minimum framerate playing with 15 bots troughed at 7 a second. I'm just saying that, based on this test, a PVS will not work, by itself. Then I added good occluders to 1.1.7.1 and calculated a PVS cull at 32 that took 2 hours. My minimum framerate playing with 15 bots was 18 a second. After playing 3 more games with 15 bots I did notice a sole 1/4 pause in one of the games. Should you want the maps for testing purposes, I've attached them to the post. My story is that the Borg have invaded Tron, parked their cube in the middle and are coming out of the cube onto the bases and the center platform. This occluder could be used to perpetuate the onslaught/invasion gametype. Again, I'm just monkeying around trying to learn how to exploit the faculties of the game to eliminate the pauses, increase the minimum framerate and, those considered, maximize the fun in the map. Learning requires experimentation so, for now, you'll get that experimentation from me. I have something in mind for this that I think you might like. However, it will take more time now that I am in college again. Thus I won't make what could be an empty promise. I do know that the occluders are better in cutecopti_1-1-7-2 than cutec_pvs. This is because I got better at it through cutec_pvs and used this knowledge for cutecopti_1-1-7-2. Also, I didn't want to tie up my computer for another 6 hours doing a new PVS cull at 64 or 10 hours at 32 for cutec 1.1. These maps aren't meant to look pretty or be finished works. As always, I am interested in your performance experiences with the maps or techniques used.

cutec_pvs.zip

cutecopti_1-1-7-2.zip

qreeves,

I dunno, raiden already expressed concern over losing the proper "feeling" on the map. Why exactly do the teleports create a freeze? Seems like something that needs to be fixed on my end.

Do you have any insight yet on how to remedy the pauses? Please forgive me, I know I am not being very patient, but if you discover something that can help us, please let us know. I don't want to become complacent. Raiden has said that even using my optimization, with no teleports, and on his faster computer he still experiences pauses, although not as prominently as before.
Cheers

[MysteriousKieran]

This map looks nothing short of stunning, a masterpiece and true example of great mapping. Sure hope this makes it to 1.3 release.

[raiden]

Hi Dratz, I'll be ready for testing from tomorrows afternoon on. I' m not at home atm., since some days. So that it lasts a while, but I'll continue. Hopefully I come up with a new version at this or next week. That version should include many parts of your changes, probably without waypoints at first. We'll see .