Official Level Design Contest: July/August 2008

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Stoney Mountain CTF Zone.. change

Because Stoney Mountain CTF was lagging quite a bit in network games, I've decided to modify it by creating a 'cut-off' version. There is a greater chance that would be submitted. Here are some shots of the modified areas.

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/7628/srb20002mw9.png
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/1042/srb20006fu8.png

Also, Oceanic Cove Zone 2, as mentioned in my signature, perhaps will be submitted as well in the Single Player category, if and only if I manage to finish it in time. There are screenshots for that level in my signature, if you haven't noticed.

So yeah, I'm lacking beta testers at the moment for Stoney Mountain CTF, so if it's quite, horrible during the voting, I don't know what to say. Please don't ask if you may be one =D. I'll figure things out, I hope...
 
Possible causes of lag:

* Insanely large amounts of Things in one area. This includes scenery Things and invisible Things.
* Too many FOFs. Having one FOF have a lot of sides hurts it a little further.
* Lots of light sources or Things with light sources in one area. This only lags in OpenGL rendering.
* "False" entries in the REJECT lump when those entries would be fine saying "true." The most common cause of this is not putting one-sided linedefs where they would help.
 
Heh, I sent FuriousFox an updated copy of Poison Palace. Because Tails immediately teleports on spawn, I added a script that will execute ONLY in multiplayer (or if you are using a custom character) saying that this level is ONLY for single-player. I don't want some noob saying ZERO OUT OF TEN IT IS UNPLAYABEL SONCI CANT EVEN MAEK THE FIRST JUMP because they played Poison Palace in coop and not single-player. I know such a vote wouldn't be counted, but I still don't want it to happen. We already have enough noobish posts on this discussion board.
 
srb20009zy5.png


Heres to hoping I finish on time.
 
Actually, it's GRASS3. But I'm really happy with how it turned out, though. This will be my first complete match map, so I hope I got my match facts straight. Now, for the item/ring placement...
 
Honestly, I think my Match map will actually do quite poorly. I'm leaving it in, though, for curiosity. Glacier Cocktail was well-received; in fact, it won. Moon Milkshake's sector layout resembles Glacier Cocktail.
 
Light Sources aren't the only things that can cripple the framerate. Stacking multiple shatter blocks, expansive areas, and stacked FOFs tend to do the trick, too.


...I know this from experience, unfortunately. :P


EDIT:Using the "netstat 1" console command gives you a good idea of how much any particular area lags.
 
According to my eyes, it DOES lag worse than Feudal Age Rush. :P Then again, super-laggy multiplayer maps often can pull off great scores, as there are many OpenGL users.
 
...

I have horrible HOM effects in Oceanic Cove Zone 2 right now. I'm not sure if I'll be able to submit it for this contest. Here is a shot of the level (taken in OpenGL mode).

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5089/srb20014an8.png

The black areas in the level were unexpected errors, and if played in software mode, you'll see errors just like SRB2 Wiki's example of HOM effects in Botanic Serenity Zone: http://wiki.srb2.org/wiki/SRB2_Rendering_Errors#Hall_of_Mirrors

Here is the map of the level so far. I need someone to check if the errors have anything to do with sector placement: http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/4681/oceaniccovezone2kz0.png (the screenshot area of the level is shown at the top-right corner of the map).

What I'm thinking about, is perhaps the errors were made from the pretty high floor and ceiling heights (at the screenshot, approx. 3750 - 6000). More of those HOM errors were shown in later areas of the level. Will the errors be fixed if the floor and ceiling heights are lowered? If so, then I'll have to make another sector that teleports the player to another area of the map...

If that doesn't work, then I just hope I don't lose valuable points on this just for that.
 
Perhaps that big ol' empty sector is contributing to the errors. My map had a huge error once that got fixed when I wrapped the thok barrier around it. Apparently the thok barrier was too huge.
 
I cannot see the image. Sites like Imageshack, Freewebs, etc. are blocked on our home computer. A huge sector will indeed cause HOM slime trails. I don't mind even Botanic Serenity Low End's large amounts of it all that much.
 
Are you using Zennode? Many problems like what you are describing can be fixed by using a better node builder, and right now Zennode is the best one out there.
 
Problem Solved...

No, it didn't have anything to do with the 'emptiness' of the layout. Yes, I use ZenNode, as it came with SRB2 Doom Builder.

Finally, yes, I'm glad the problem was resolved when I lowered the floor and ceiling heights of the area back to normality (usually the base at 0), and set existing heights proportionally so that the area looks exactly the same as how it was before, just with smaller numbers. However, that added an extra section to the level, so I had to create another teleporting sector. Still though, I think it's alright.

In my previous post, I forgot to mention that even rotating the whole level by x degrees, or moving the whole level to another area of the canvas still didn't resolve the error.

I learned quite a bit just from this error. This proved the SRB2 Wiki's statement in the SRB2 Rendering Errors article, via non-anticipated experimentation:

[u said:
SRB2 Wiki Article: SRB2 Rendering Errors, Section Hall of Mirrors[/u]]Making overly large, high, and/or undetailed maps can cause this effect [Hall of Mirrors (HOM)] to happen as well, sometimes even in OpenGL.
I'll be getting pretty busy in the upcoming week, so I think this level won't make it to this contest, but perhaps the next contest.
 
Question about New Rule 4. Mr. Fox, how are you going to enforce the New Rule 4?

on a sub-note, Medivo Circuit Nights is just about ready to go. I make no guarentees about GS Scrap Brain.
 
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