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visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 5:32 am
by andylegate
Okay we touched upon this briefly in the waveset threads, but I'd like to go back to this, as I still can't get it to work, and there may be others out there they are also having the same problem, but have not spoken up, or down the road they may run into it.

Let me discribe what I'm trying to do, and how I'm doing it, as most of the time someone on here sees the problem when I do it this way:

Zephyr Cove is a LARGE age. Doesn't matter how many times I make sure that each mesh is as low as I can get it's poly count without sacrificing the realism to where it starts looking like crap, the fact is, I keep adding to it because the Age is not done.

Gahreesen is a big Age, and of course not only did they (Cyan) put things on seperate prp's, they also made things not rendered until they are needed. I understand this, as I used to use visregions in all the Game Editors for FPS's. With them it was quite easy as you just had to make a "wall" and split the map up into different "zones" but you didn't have to script it or anything like that. However, what it did was basically the same: don't rendered until needed. This enhanced game performance quite a bit, and made very large maps possible without crashing people's games.

Now, with Zephyr it's a bit harder as I have that HUGE beach line, but I can still do something as I have the tunnels and cavern that you don't see while on the beach, and vice versa for when you're in the tunnels, etc, etc.

So after reading that original thread, and what was said in the waveset thread, here is what I've tried:
note: this was just for the wavesets that were in the cavern, not all the objects in the caver....too much work until I know it works.

I create a cubic softvolume and give it a name, like: cavernvisreg, and I edit and scale it to go around my huge ocean. recenter it, and use cntrl-A to apply scale and rotation. I then attach to it in the ALCscript the following:

Code: Select all
oceanwaveset:
    visual:
        visregions:
          - "!(cavernvisreg)"

now, the spawn point is outside the region. The way I understood it, is that while outside this visregion, based upon how that coding is ( the ! ), the waveset will be drawn, but will then disappear upon the avie entering the region.

Exports fine, but upon link in, the waveset is gone, and stays gone.
Okay, try the inverse of that:

Code: Select all
oceanwaveset:
    visual:
        visregions:
          - "(cavernvisreg)"


with the ! Gone. Exports fine. I link in, and the waveset is back.....and stays. It never goes away even upon entering the region.

It's acting like the softvolume itself that is the visregion will not act as the trigger. Do I have to put in another region that acts as the trigger?

Re: visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 6:51 am
by Trylon
could you add a picture of your soft volume? (Including Normals)

Re: visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 7:06 am
by andylegate
Sure, you'll have to wait for me to put it back in however. I removed the stuff since it wasn't working, so I could continue to work on other stuff. So give me a few minutes or so.

Re: visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 7:25 am
by andylegate
Here it is, the pink square is the region.

The darkblue area is the waveset: (in this pic, I don't have the bounds set, I know I have to do that)

Show Spoiler

Re: visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 8:30 am
by Trylon
Are your normals pointing inwards or outwards?

Re: visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 8:47 am
by andylegate
on the region? Outwards.

And if they are suppose to point inwards....I'd just like to point out that nobody has said to do that anywhere, nor is there anything that says to do that....... :|

Re: visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 9:09 am
by Nadnerb
Uhm actually, the normals on softvolumes are supposed to point inwards. That's why when you create a softvolume the "expected" way (by using "Scripts > PyPRP Soft Volumes > Add a Soft Volume Cube") it creates a cube with the normals facing inward. Hence, it was never thought there was a need to mention exactly what it was doing, simply that the softvolume would work if you created it that way. However, if you just create an object, then the normals will be facing outward (as per the Blender defaults) and you'll have to flip them manually.

Re: visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 9:41 am
by andylegate
Ah, no, the normals are facing inwards, as I used the script to create the softvolumes.

Re: visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 1:44 pm
by Nadnerb
So what you're saying is... you didn't check? ;)

I haven't used visregions myself, though I know paradox has. As far as I know, it should just be a softvolume attached to the visual. If I have time I might test it out later.

Re: visregions

PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 2:29 pm
by andylegate
No I didn't check at first, as I didn't know that softvolumes are created with their normals inverted. However, I did go look after I posted that, and yes, the normals are inverted and pointing inward.