Custom Map Makers

Here's something I've been playing around with for a little while. Not sure if many people will be interested but I'm posting what I've done, just in case.

I was curious to know the pros and cons of making a map using using only models and very few textures and shaders.

Here's what I made using 3dsmax, nothing special, just half a model of an indoor soccer stadium.



To paint this entire model I used only 3 images, one for the walls, one for the floors and one for trim.



I've not really used all the images as yet, there's room for more variation.

I exported the model to .ase format and imported it into radiant..

, duplicated the model. I added a couple of decals to the walls just to see how they would work - they work nice, then I compiled the map and made this video.



Well, thats as far as I've got - I've not bothered to clip the models, I would think this would be a pain, I've not created different kinds of clip for wood, metal yet - not certain this even works.

Am still experimenting

What exactly are you interested in learning from this experiment?
Q. How many polygons can you push in if you use just models?
A. Right around 850 000 polygons, modern GPU doesn't really cares about the polygons, it's doesn't matters if it's 5k or 30k, it will render it quickly.
Special effects and post processing are the ones that will cause FPS drops.
Best example is bloom in UrT HD. As soon as i turn it on, my GPU starts working 100%.

Q. How big textures can you use and if it's better to use one big instead of several smaller textures?
A. 2048 is about as high as you can go. I would love to see support for 4k textures. Simply cause it's easier to create a decent terrain texture when you work with an image that can cover a super large surface.
And if you for example have a lot of smaller models you can place all their skins into one texture. So all your foliage for a map could fit into just one image.

In UrT 4.1 i can't see any difference at all in changing the texture detail level. Those textures are just too small to affect performance.
You'd have to be using a prehistoric ati 9800 128 MB GPU to notice an improvement in framerate.
Since an average 512/1GB GPU can be bought for pocket change today there's no real reason to worry over texture size, not when your top limit is 2048, recommended size 1024 and best way to go is 512/1024 and use lots of decals to add details.

Sugarmill textures:



Currently 49 textures merged into 16 bigger ones, and there is some more "to be merged"

Rayne wrote:What exactly are you interested in learning from this experiment?

Well yeah, really all that. I've seen what other people have done, as experiments and I've tried some of these things before but never on this scale.

I resized the images for the forum, they're really 2048x2048 and I'm thinking that even if I used 4 or 5 it's got to be better than having to load 20-30 smaller ones.

The current model is only 3778 polys and so doubling this up and adding a few more thousand for bits and bobs you could make a pretty detailed map.

btw: I'm pretty sure that 4096x4096 textures will load, at least on HD.

Valkover, I actually got thinking about sharing textures after you posted on urt.info, I've never seen Windows in Polish before btw.

I'm not seriously making this a map and I did intend to scrap it once I'd pushed it this far but I find myself still working on the model... just for a laugh really.