Tsoidahl Prad Project Thread

[Justintime9]

Remind me again, where's the dynamic shadows button located?
I fixed the VisRegions btw. It was as easy as scaling BalconySV to the right place. It pays to have old versions of the blendfile.

[Doobes]

Remind me again, where's the dynamic shadows button located?

As Sirius mentioned, all your materials should have the SHADBUF button off. This is located in the "Links and Pipeline" panel in the Material buttons.

For the lights, lamps that cast shadow should be used sparingly. To turn it off, deselect Ray Shadow in the Shadow and Spot panel in Lamp buttons.

Also, any lamps that you only need for lightmapping but don't need to light the avatar can be taken out on export by setting them to a page_num that isn't defined in the Book/AGE file. This can be done by adding a string into the light's properties (Logic - F4).

An example:



For colliders, the Triangle Mesh type of Bounds should be used the most sparingly. For most blocky objects, Convex Hull is the preferred method as it's easier on URU.

[Sirius]

IMHO, light sources such as lamps or lanterns should always cast shadows, otherwise this would also disable the avatar's shadow. The only exception is ambient/diffuse light that's supposed to come from everywhere, such as a brightly lit room or light bouncing off a bright surface.


Colliders have a small impact on performance, since Havok is relatively good at handling lots of objects. Generally it's more noticeable in large Ages that use Triangle Mesh collisions for literally every object, but it might make your Age more playable on old computers. And it generally feels better in some places. For instance, collision for stairs are often replaced by a single plane, because otherwise climbing stairs become horribly bouncy and slow. The same goes for door frames, knobs, and any small objects that stick out of walls.

By the way, if you haven't done so already, I'd also recommend downloading the latest version of PyPRP - it gets rid of bounciness of collisions that are present in most Ages (the bounce effect you can notice when jumping towards a wall).

EDIT: corrected misunderstanding.

[Justintime9]

Well most of the objects have Shadbuff off. But I could turn off Ray Shadow on some lamps. I only recently enabled that, because I wanted the avatar to cast a shadow. But I don't need it enabled for every lamp I suppose.

[Doobes]

I only recently enabled that, because I wanted the avatar to cast a shadow. But I don't need it enabled for every lamp I suppose.

It's entirely up to you. Shadows from lamps do give things a more realistic feel, but only the more powerful graphics cards can truly handle 'em. They're easy enough for the end user to deactivate though if needed.

[Justintime9]

Ok, so I unchecked Ray Shadow for a lot of the lights, and there's no lag now. In some areas its still on so a faint shadow can be seen for realism. So since I've got some of these basic problems sorted out, I've gone on to fixing a problem with one of my lightmaps. I can't figure it out. The lightmap looks fine in Blender, but terrible when it's in URU. No matter what I do. If I create a new Lightmap even.

Edit: problem solved. I just had to delete the lightmap file in the TexCache folder and then re-export.

[dendwaler]

Just a reminder.
Make lightmaps and Ao in the latest blender 2.67x
Its much faster and much better, you can use the results in 2.49b.

[Doobes]

Edit: problem solved. I just had to delete the lightmap file in the TexCache folder and then re-export.

You'd be surprised how often I forget to do that myself.

[Justintime9]

Just a reminder.
Make lightmaps and Ao in the latest blender 2.67x
Its much faster and much better, you can use the results in 2.49b.

I gave this a try today. I don't see a very noticeable difference, but maybe it's subtle. One problem I always have with lightmaps is lack of anti-aliasing. The edges are ALWAYS jagged. I've sort of remedied that by putting the image into Photoshop and blurring the edges. But that doesn't always do the trick. Any tips on how to fix this? There's no anti-aliasing button in the bake settings, even in 2.67.

[janaba]

I gave this a try today. I don't see a very noticeable difference, but maybe it's subtle. One problem I always have with lightmaps is lack of anti-aliasing. The edges are ALWAYS jagged. I've sort of remedied that by putting the image into Photoshop and blurring the edges. But that doesn't always do the trick. Any tips on how to fix this? There's no anti-aliasing button in the bake settings, even in 2.67.

Usually that's being adjusted in your graphics card's control panel, esp. if the resp. application doesn't provide such an option, but, of course, maybe there are other tips and tricks to handle this in Blender ... besides that, blurring the edges for that purpose sounds really ... ohhhh ... you know what I mean, lol ...