Breldur, my new age

[Aloys]

In my version of Pahts the last time I exported it (which was a while ago) I set had *all* objects with 'static triangle mesh' collisions. Obviously that's not a good idea with so many objects, but it worked surprisingly well. (for all the streets I had a specific collider mesh (one for each district) to save some triangles but it was also set to triangle mesh.)

[Jojon]

I'd say a higher priority than changing to convex hull, should be to build separate collision geometry - you can usually get away with MUCH simpler geomery than the visual one -- if most of these new colliders turns out convex solids, so that you can make them convex hulls, just the better.
You may not even need to have the fronds of you palmtrees collideable at all, if the player stays on the ground. :)

It appears to me that it should be perfectly possible to switch off physics for objects in far-away regions of an age, using regions, just as with visibles, although these may need to check for the presence of ANY avatar, or I suppose there might be nasties in multiplayer situations... :9


Note that if one sets the soft distance of a visregion to zero, it can be realiably used to switch between two versions of an object, like a clumsy LOD system, so if you have a large object that is visible from any point in the age, you can still use a visregion on it, but instead of just switching it off, replace it with a lower detail version, or even a billboard, when far away. (EDIT: For an example of this; check the concrete bridge in the ERC age.)

[Aloys]

I'd say a higher priority than changing to convex hull, should be to build separate collision geometry

True. Disabling collision for all objects and adding in custom collision mesh will help a lot.

if one sets the soft distance of a visregion to zero, it can be realiably used to switch between two versions of an object, like a clumsy LOD system

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the only LOD system in Plasma?

[Chuckles58]

Would using visregions on his caves/rooms alone help the performance, as they appear to be hidden from everything outside, with the exception of the cool window in his living room.

When using my old underpowered system in Teledahn, I'd always notice a little lag as I went around the corner between the slave caves and the loading dock area. It was my understanding that it was something like visregions.

disclaimer - I don't know what I'm talking about, these are just my observations from watching the experts try to help Jonnee.

I'd hate to see the ocean gone from the age or cause him to do major redos again.

[Jonnee]

Note that if one sets the soft distance of a visregion to zero

At first: I'm still realling thinking of changing the huge garden into a small canyon like Ercana with just two or three garden places. Yesterday I've found great canyon textures. You will be surprised! Trust me!!
Finally I have to delete vertices - and the garden used alot of them.

I have an idea how I can change the positions of the rooms so that it still adds up with the story of the age. Changing the positions of the rooms will easily allow me to add Visregions too. It will be much easier then to switch rooms on and off that are not visible for the players in different situations.

So I still need informations about the Visregions. I just can imagine how it works. I know it from my softvolumes.
I think that I have to put a Visregion about a room wih this code:

Code: Select all

Name of the Softvolume:
    type: softvolume
    softvolume:
      - type: convex (Do I have to use convex? I will use one region for every room, no intersections etc...)
        softdist: 10 (or 0 or whatever for setting how hard or soft the object get's faded in)

After this I have to add the following code for every object that is inside of the Visregion:

Code: Select all

Name of the object:
    visual:
        visregions:
          - Name of the Softvolume

Am I right?? <==
But how did Cyan do this with the grass in Ercana?? Does every bunch have it's own Visregion?? I can't imagine!
Or is there just one Visregion in the whole age for the grass and it gets fade in in addiction of the camera's position?

You may not even need to have the fronds of you palmtrees collideable at all, if the player stays on the ground.

Yeah, I can easily build colliders for the tree stumps. The colliders doesn't have to have the whole size of the palm for example. Just as high as a player could jump on it.

I'd hate to see the ocean gone from the age or cause him to do major redos again.

I still have an idea for keeping the ocean.

[Aloys]

how did Cyan do this with the grass in Ercana?? Does every bunch have it's own Visregion?? I can't imagine!
Or is there just one Visregion in the whole age for the grass and it gets fade in in addiction of the camera's position?

The grass is most certainly a big cluster, or a set of cluster. Wouldn't it be possible that only one object in the cluster is assigned to the visregion and the whole cluster is automatically attached?

[Christian Walther]

To my knowledge you can’t fade in and out stuff using visregions (even though they use soft volumes). According to my research, it’s a hard threshold at field strength 1.0. If anyone knows for a fact that this is incorrect, please edit the corresponding paragraph in the wiki article.

[D'Lanor]

To my knowledge you can’t fade in and out stuff using visregions (even though they use soft volumes). According to my research, it’s a hard threshold at field strength 1.0. If anyone knows for a fact that this is incorrect, please edit the corresponding paragraph in the wiki article.

But what did Cyan use for the lamps in Ae'gura then? They clearly fade in and out.

And these are the only objects in Ae'gura that fade (along with a few barriers). So if these are visregions they aren't really used that often by Cyan and apparently more for effect than for lag reduction.

[Aloys]

That's correct, there are also lamps objects that fade in/out in the hoods light garden.

[Jonnee]

I use alot of softvolumes for lamps. They fade in and out.

So... What about my code for the Visregions?