I'd like to hear what you guys think would be a good amount of doodads for a 256/256 map.
I'm currently making the terrain for someone's RPG, and if I continue with roughly the same density of doodads, the map will end up with over 60,000 doodads.
Personally I would say: 60,000 sounds like a lot :S, though I don't know much about it. Never done much terrain-ing yet. But I guess it depends on how the camera is set up.
I am currently making a 128x136 dota typed map, and if I keep up with my density, I will be hitting about 3k doodas, and I would say I am not holding back (not much at least).
It depends on the doodads in a part. Waterfalls will cause lags in groups of 300 in one screen; even on good computers. I think Mozared said something with 1000 per player for the whole map, but that doesn't meaning anything for one screen or lags.
I think you shouldn't go over 150-200 doodads per screen.
60,000 will be completely unplayable, you have my word. That's far above even what I'm going to end up with for my secret showcase map that I don't intend to be playable anyway.
What Zanryu says - I tend to go with 1K doodads per player. It's not set in stone, but I find it a decent rule of thumb. For the average map, this ends you up with 8000 doodads, which is what I generally adhere to as a max for most common maps. Regardless of what you aim for, I would never ever go above 20,000 doodads for a map, not even if it was a huge 15-player RPG-style thing.
This terrain is for a third person RPG. Part of the reason why there are so many doodads is that everything is in 1/2 scale so that we can fit a ton into one map. I suppose I could probably fiddle with camera settings and fog to get stuff to work reasonable. I did that with another RPG terrain I did with a similar doodad density and it didn't lag at all.
Speaking of this, I have a map thats just south of 1000 doodads so far. The Map size is 80x112. How much higher can I go without causing lag in my project?
max amount of actors alone in game is around 16000 this includes units,doodads, missile units, spell effects...... if you hit the cap the game will not create more actors.
You cannot say that it will cause no lag. The average bnet player has a crap laptop playing on low graphics, and even the most basic TPS system will cause them a great deal of lag. (I dare any of you to try and disprove this, I have a laptop sitting right next to me that is utter shit, but is exactly what my friend plays on. It can't even handle 4v4 melee games! Oh, did I mention it is a "gaming" laptop?)
But yeah, lower that down. A lot. It will just lag way too much. And there is the actor limit, which I cannot confirm, because I have never even gotten close to that many :/
max amount of actors alone in game is around 16000 this includes units,doodads, missile units, spell effects...... if you hit the cap the game will not create more actors.
Same with units alone, actually. For more than 16.384 units, the game does not create additional ones (or the food cap does not get updated anymore ;))
max amount of actors alone in game is around 16000 this includes units,doodads, missile units, spell effects...... if you hit the cap the game will not create more actors.
Does this include the approximately 4,000 actors that you get when you use all the standard dependencies? Does this also include copies of actors?
Well, I'm nearly certain that I'll be hitting the 16k actor limit :(
Though strictly speaking if I keep this up I will actually hit around 64k actors because the game will be split into four maps for several reason lol. I guess I'll need to fill up more doodadless mountains lol. They seem to be an excellent way to use up space without just having it be empty.
I don't know if this has been tried before and I could be a mad man but...
You could try a work around. Saving doodads into trigger and loading certain sections when its needed by creating actions with doodads at certain points. You'll need some somehow transfer all the doodads into triggers. Such as making a region over a area, saving the x/y point and doodad type into a bank, then extracting the information from the bank and importing it into the game.
Also use starcode to compress stuff because you have limited space for triggers. Perhaps some other way to store the information? a imported file with strings of numbers? MPQ injection? idk
I'd like to hear what you guys think would be a good amount of doodads for a 256/256 map.
I'm currently making the terrain for someone's RPG, and if I continue with roughly the same density of doodads, the map will end up with over 60,000 doodads.
@Nebuli2: Go
I think some of the answers in this thread might answer your question: http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/development/map-development/4616-too-many-doodads-in-terrain-cause-lag/
Personally I would say: 60,000 sounds like a lot :S, though I don't know much about it. Never done much terrain-ing yet. But I guess it depends on how the camera is set up.
60,000? uhhhhhhhhh............... That's quite a bit don't ya think? It sounds like a hell of a lot to me but idk.
I am currently making a 128x136 dota typed map, and if I keep up with my density, I will be hitting about 3k doodas, and I would say I am not holding back (not much at least).
It depends on the doodads in a part. Waterfalls will cause lags in groups of 300 in one screen; even on good computers. I think Mozared said something with 1000 per player for the whole map, but that doesn't meaning anything for one screen or lags.
I think you shouldn't go over 150-200 doodads per screen.
60,000 will be completely unplayable, you have my word. That's far above even what I'm going to end up with for my secret showcase map that I don't intend to be playable anyway.
What Zanryu says - I tend to go with 1K doodads per player. It's not set in stone, but I find it a decent rule of thumb. For the average map, this ends you up with 8000 doodads, which is what I generally adhere to as a max for most common maps. Regardless of what you aim for, I would never ever go above 20,000 doodads for a map, not even if it was a huge 15-player RPG-style thing.
@Zanryu1337: Go
Try to test the FPS decrease on a weak computer. I can offer you to test it on this laptop with different settings.
This terrain is for a third person RPG. Part of the reason why there are so many doodads is that everything is in 1/2 scale so that we can fit a ton into one map. I suppose I could probably fiddle with camera settings and fog to get stuff to work reasonable. I did that with another RPG terrain I did with a similar doodad density and it didn't lag at all.
There's also no foliage.
Speaking of this, I have a map thats just south of 1000 doodads so far. The Map size is 80x112. How much higher can I go without causing lag in my project?
@Nebuli2: Go
max amount of actors alone in game is around 16000 this includes units,doodads, missile units, spell effects...... if you hit the cap the game will not create more actors.
@SouLCarveRR: Go
Hmm... I never knew there was an actor limit :\
@Nebuli2: Go
You cannot say that it will cause no lag. The average bnet player has a crap laptop playing on low graphics, and even the most basic TPS system will cause them a great deal of lag. (I dare any of you to try and disprove this, I have a laptop sitting right next to me that is utter shit, but is exactly what my friend plays on. It can't even handle 4v4 melee games! Oh, did I mention it is a "gaming" laptop?)
But yeah, lower that down. A lot. It will just lag way too much. And there is the actor limit, which I cannot confirm, because I have never even gotten close to that many :/
Great to be back and part of the community again!
Same with units alone, actually. For more than 16.384 units, the game does not create additional ones (or the food cap does not get updated anymore ;))
Does this include the approximately 4,000 actors that you get when you use all the standard dependencies? Does this also include copies of actors?
@Imperfect1987: Go
He he meant actors on the map.
Well, I'm nearly certain that I'll be hitting the 16k actor limit :(
Though strictly speaking if I keep this up I will actually hit around 64k actors because the game will be split into four maps for several reason lol. I guess I'll need to fill up more doodadless mountains lol. They seem to be an excellent way to use up space without just having it be empty.
I don't know if this has been tried before and I could be a mad man but...
You could try a work around. Saving doodads into trigger and loading certain sections when its needed by creating actions with doodads at certain points. You'll need some somehow transfer all the doodads into triggers. Such as making a region over a area, saving the x/y point and doodad type into a bank, then extracting the information from the bank and importing it into the game.
Also use starcode to compress stuff because you have limited space for triggers. Perhaps some other way to store the information? a imported file with strings of numbers? MPQ injection? idk
@zandose: Go
Seems like more trouble than it's worth lol. Also, how well would that work in multiplayer with 14 players lol?
@Nebuli2: Go I have no idea. It's the only thing I can think of that might work if you want to use a crazy amount of doodads.
@zandose: Go
Yeah... maybe I'll try that in some single player game lol.