http://www.realitymod.com/forum/blogs/ Welcome to the Project Reality Official Forums! Project Reality is a realistic, modern, Battlefield 2 modification featuring a variety of new nations, including the complete British Army, weapons, vehicles, and new game modes. Join our growing community today! en Tue, 14 Feb 2012 03:35:02 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.realitymod.com/forum/images/pr/misc/rss.jpg http://www.realitymod.com/forum/blogs/ http://www.realitymod.com/forum/blogs/16538/b276-burning-sands-journey-learning-optimisation.html Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:36:34 GMT Hi all, thought I'd let you know about what I've been working on aside from helping community mappers and messing with maps currently in the build.

Burning Sands unfortunately had alot of issues that didn't crop up during testing, however thanks to both friends and fellow gamers I've had a large number of reports identifying the problems.

Burning Sands suffered from:

[B]Memory CTDs[/B]

Why?
- Too many lightmap files
- Too many textures/texture pallets being loaded for objects
[URL="http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f354-community-maps/49073-mapper-info-static-objects-should-not-used-your-maps.html"]- Problem statics[/URL]

[B]Performance issues especially in the city[/B]

Why?
- Too may enterable buildings or high poly buildings close together
- Memory taken up in loading the map in the first place

Other bugs e.g. Combat areas in layer 64 had become messed up.

I'm confident this is all fixed and will be released with the next release, which will be done when its done. :D

[url=http://www.xfire.com/profile/trekkyaaron/screenshots/?view#112686022][img]http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/112686022-1.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://www.xfire.com/profile/trekkyaaron/screenshots/?view#112686046][img]http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/112686046-1.jpg[/img][/url]

She's still big and pretty despite my optimisations.

Heres a list of some the changes

Removed pavements (that was about 2000 objects, all had been lightmapped, so thats over 2000 textures not loaded, huzzah!)
Removed problem statics e.g. iraqi low apartments.
Optimised Lightmaps in both resolution and in selection of objects (was [B]55 [/B]atlases, now only 15!
Optimised terrain Lightmaps by decreasing resolution of FINAL LMs to 50% (note this achieves better quality and avoids offsetting colormaps than simply LMing on medium)
Replaced alot of enterable buildings with non-enterables/more optimised versions. This might sound bad to some people, but honestly I think spreading out the enterables will be good for both performance and gameplay. (muttrah being a prime example of this)
Removed a good number of destructable objects
created several more open spaces in the city (both for gamplay and FPS)
Removed alot of rocks (LOD issues)
Removed alot of mid east village statics
Lowered VD by 50m

These changes mean that alot more RAM is freed up during loading than before and also the FPS will be higher since theres fewer polys to render in the city, without sacrificing gameplay.

Also, for those of you who played the last public beta test - I've fixed the CTD on low terrain bug :) HUZZAH!


Gamplay changes

Asset and balance tweaks
Now all assets spawn in main base even at the start, exception is two MEC vehicles in the military base. This will prevent confusion.
AASv4 implemented



For you budding young mappers out there, remember all because it runs at 100FPS on your computer on local doesn't mean it'll behave like that on a public server. Optimisation is key!

Never use 3 objects where one will do, never use 3 kinds of objects when one kind will do.
Space out your enterables
Be selective with your lightmaps


I hope you enjoyed this humble blog, and I hope it reaffirms your belief that optimisation and fixing problems is at the fore of our minds.

Live Long and Prosper ]]> Rudd http://www.realitymod.com/forum/blogs/16538/b276-burning-sands-journey-learning-optimisation.html http://www.realitymod.com/forum/blogs/16538/b247-my-first-blog-first-map.html Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:02:42 GMT Hi all, I thought I'd finally use this blog function.

I'm a 21 year old part time healthcare assistant who is going abroad to volunteer in Kenya soon, afterwhich I am going to nursing school. But in the meantime I've been spending far too much of my free time making maps for PR :wink:, as well as helping out in the production of the mod in a mapping context (setting up gameplay objects, fixing bugs etc). Its an honour and privilage to work with such a friendly and fun loving team.

But, enough about me, and more about my first PR map.

[B]Burning Sands

British Vs MEC[/B]

a 4k desert-city map, think of it as EJOD, meets Kufrah meets Kashan. Players at Tactical Gamer have been both lucky and helpful enough to have had a peek at the beta versions which were used to test the gameplay of the map and make some changes as well as fix bugs and it got some great reviews.

Even now I look back on this map and shudder at some aspects as making this map taught me alot about how to do things better next time.

To illustrate how much you learn from doing and making mistakes.

here is the map a year ago
[url]http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/2812/minimapa.png[/url]

here is the map now
[url]http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/4648/ingamemap.jpg[/url]

the map is based around infantry islands with areas where vehicles are king, however the terrain is actually quite conducive to infantry survivability if not combat effectiveness; so I'm sure all aspects of the team will enjoy the game in the public domain.

some more teasers to get you excited

[url=http://www.xfire.com/profile/trekkyaaron/screenshots/?view#102537993][img]http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/102537993-1.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://www.xfire.com/profile/trekkyaaron/screenshots/?view#102538074][img]http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/102538074-1.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://www.xfire.com/profile/trekkyaaron/screenshots/?view#102536914][img]http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/102536914-1.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://www.xfire.com/profile/trekkyaaron/screenshots/?view#102537093][img]http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/102537093-1.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://www.xfire.com/profile/trekkyaaron/screenshots/?view#102537627][img]http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/102537627-1.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://www.xfire.com/profile/trekkyaaron/screenshots/?view#102537165][img]http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/102537165-1.jpg[/img][/url]

well I hope you like the look of the map, and that I'll be releasing more work to the public in the near future. ]]> Rudd http://www.realitymod.com/forum/blogs/16538/b247-my-first-blog-first-map.html