[DM] Solarium

Solarium: welcome to the garden of madness

I have been working on this map for quite some time now. Mostly because school stuff kept getting in the way, but also because I had a lot of difficulty with the texturing. mostly because I kind of like it with the texturing kind of simple as it is now. everything I tried to add just made it look bad. So for now, I am just releasing it as is, and if anyone has any tips for texturing, let me know because I am out of ideas on this. (i think it looks cool as is :p)

oh, and there are a few things I forgot to do, like some of the stairs aren't finished, and I need to add some more lighting, or AO or something.

anyway, enjoy. I really really like this one.



(these are old screenshots btw, i will update them at some point)

Get it here!
version 1
(OLD)

VERSION 2
(OLD)

VERSION 3
http://beta.xonotic.org/autobuild-bsp/so...e983e8.pk3

this version is pretty much final for now.

*gasps for air*

Wow, that looks nice!

Edit: Ok, I checked it out a few minutes ago. For me there are several remaining textures and a lack of performance (caused by that grass I think). Also, the water wont show up and there is no trigger_hurt when jumping out towards the skybox (which definitely fits very good!)

As far as I had a look at the layout and the placement, its good.

Oh, what a lovely map!!

Under both the preview and the git, the map is totally unplayable for me due to the frame rate dropping through the floor. There's also missing textures that only show up in the git as well. The highest average FPS I had on the whole map no matter what settings I put my game on was about 4 with me and only me on the map.

System Specs
----------------
OS: Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 Black Edition, 3GHz
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX, 256 bit, PCIE 2.0, 1 GB
RAM: 4 GB (2 X 2 GB) DDR2 1066MHZ in dual channel


Typical performance on my system at 2048 X 1536, VSync disabled, Wait for GPU enabled
----------------
Settings A 50-63fps, fps capped at 63
--------


Settings B 60-90fps, fps capped at 90
-------

Edit: Ok, I checked it out a few minutes ago. For me there are several remaining textures and a lack of performance (caused by that grass I think). Also, the water wont show up and there is no trigger_hurt when jumping out towards the skybox (which definitely fits very good!)

These textures are in the git version but not in the preview version. Yes the grass is one performance killer

Interesting map.
Though I warned to be careful about how much of the grass is visible in an actual map.
In terms of the vis, this is an open map. The big grass patch can be seen (i.e. is rendered) from almost every place in the map.
Adding water (which doubles the rendered triangles, when reflections are turned on) won't really help either

You could try to decrease the area with the grass shader, for example remove the grass below the water line. You could also adjust the shader a bit, with fewer but bigger grass models. This could improve performance.

The highest average FPS I had on the whole map no matter what settings I put my game on was about 4 with me and only me on the map.

I don't know what the problem is there, but I get quite a decent performance jumping around alone with the laser, with "Normal" settings (though it still is quite bad compared to the stock maps):
74.1418558 fps, one-second fps min/avg/max: 42 79 131

1280x1024
OpenSUSE 11.3
Nvidia Geforce 7600GT
Intel Q6600 2.40GHz

EDIT: I figured it out. Turns out I had an old grass.shader script in my data/scripts folder for whatever reason. Performance kinda drops (30-40fps) when HDR is enabled, but when disabled it holds 54-63 (capped at 63) frames per second. It'd be nice if the textures weren't missing though, my git version of the game doesn't have sound (must have effed something up when I first downloaded it).

9fps at the highest, still dropping into spf territory after moving my config out of my .xonotic directory and running everything on default at 1024 X 768. My graphics card is on performance settings as well.

Mine wouldn't even load in GIT or the 0.1 Preview. When I started it from the 'Create' tab, it would go to the loading screen for 'maps/solarium.bsp' and just sit there and sit there.

for those experiencing missing textures, i guess you will just have to wait until for the next release.

and I suppose I will have to ditch the grass. I can maybe go through and place some grass models. (bleeeargh)

I would really like to see some sort of auto generated grass system like the cube engine has. (and then it could be turned off in the graphics setings.)

theShadow, once you have done what you can do this level, I will be committed to finalizing it to be included in game. I think it has a intriguing theme and layout out. We can get the performance issues sorted out and then get some nice details going Would be a great edition to the game imo!

This level also demonstrates how ridiculous the current physics are traveling around at 19m/s without a laser :S

for those experiencing missing textures, i guess you will just have to wait until for the next release.

and I suppose I will have to ditch the grass. I can maybe go through and place some grass models. (bleeeargh)

I would really like to see some sort of auto generated grass system like the cube engine has. (and then it could be turned off in the graphics setings.)

I think grass can work if you just simply minimize it a bit in the large patch in the map over by the pond or if you found a way to make all of not render when it's not in view. From any given spot on the map, if I move my crosshair in the direction of that patch, I get slowdown.

well, hints would work. i hear thats kind of what they do. :p

The level at least looks f***ing great!!

Wow, this is THE MEANING OF EYE-CANDY!!!!!

new update!

*added a clip to the windows to prevent falling out.
*added some detail
*added some more detail
*corrected some of the performance issue by pulling the grass back from the water, so it doesn't reflect in the water. also made the grass a little less sense (less on screen) as an added
bonus, this actually makes that area look better imo.
*a couple other things fairly obvious things.

so anyway, im calling this version 2.
version 2

Better, but still a performance killer. Even without firing a weapon I'm still getting drops down into the 25fps area.

Now you have even more triangles in the map than before...
Version 1: 164'039
Version 2: 186'967

Anyway, I recommend to use the available in-game tools to have closer look at what (and how much of it) is rendered:
r_speeds 1
r_showtris 1
r_showdisabledepthtest 1

In NetRadiant, you can use the prtview plugin, to have a closer look at the portals, and optimise them with hint brushes.

Using the Xonotic timedemo is very useful as well (Demos tab). You can make a demo playing in the map, and then accurately see if changing something causes a performance improvement or drop (execute timedemo, then check data/benchmark.log).

well, I did add a few things, but I also set a few brushes as detail instead of structural. i need to do that more, as well as optimize my brushes. they are kinda a mess.

also, cuinnton, when you work on it, could you do some performance enhancement? i dont really know much about that sort of thing.

ok, so I think I figured out the problem. while messing with the grass shader, I kept lowering the number for density, in order to decrease the amount of grass overall. however, what I did not understand was that lowering the number actually RAISED the density. Now that i know that, I was able to adjust the settings more accurately, and hopefully this version should have much better performance than its predecessors.

for now, I am calling this final, so cuinnton, you are free to start working on it if you wish.

Version 3 (final-ish)
http://beta.xonotic.org/autobuild-bsp/so...2f7bcd.pk3

I also added a map image

Just tried it... wonderful map! Would look good with more detail I think (especially the walls), but the looks of the layout is great (gameplay feels ok too). A must-merge IMO

thats what Cuinnton said he was going to do

Looks gorgeous. O_o

Maybe have the grass shader drop density based on distance? But only after a certain cuttoff point...

that is not possible. the grass models are baked into the map.

mastermind, what I really want is something that works like the grass in the cube 2 engine. I dont suppose you could look into that? (that would also make it easier to add grass to maps, and allow people with slower computers to decrease the render distance or even disable the feature alltogether as one of the graphics options.)

that is not possible. the grass models are baked into the map.

Actually, I remember a way in which it might have been possible. Reborn in Nexuiz (Onslaught map) had a shader that made grass models a texture feature, placing them dynamically over a textured area. I think that limited it by draw distance as well, though I'm not sure.

Terrifica map! Sophisticated and very playable. Thank you for your effort!

ok kitsune, I will have to ask around about that.