New Patch Editor Options

[mr luc]

+ ptr for visibility sector flags wasn't initialized
+ added visibility tweaks flags per sector and per worldbase entity (classification and visibility include/exclude)

^^ What does this mean?? Anything to do with a visibility tweak PER WORLDBASE probably means they're giving us an easier way to do what LSD showed us in the Advanced Zoning Tutorials. No?

[LSD]

Yes, I'll try and tute this soon. But basically, you can say "this brush is in this zone, its not in this zone" or you can say "this brush can only be seen from this zone" or you can say "this brush cannot be seen from this zone" . very useful stuff.

[mr luc]

AHA! That's what I hoped they would do. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this totally remove the need to use main worldbase adjoining sectors? I think it does!

[mr luc]

DOH. This info is in Notes_1_04.txt. It really does a pretty good job of explaining what these new abilities do. Particularly visibility tweaks.



Visibility Tweaks
-----------------

VisTweaks are special flags assigned to each sector and to each worldbase brush entity. They are used to hand-tune visibility calculations for non-zoning brushes. Normally, visibility calculations are 'conservative', meaning that you always see all brushes that are in your line of sight. However, in order to improve the frame rate, you would sometimes prefer to drop some brushes that could potentially be visible. Naturally, the results are not realistic, since some buildings that might be seen from some points in the level will not be rendered, but if the gamer doesn't notice, it may be acceptable.

There are two groups of flags: visibility bits (banks 0 and 1) and classification bits (banks 2 and 3). The bits are editable per sector of a zoning brush (in the Sector property page), and per non-zoning brush (Shift+C, Shift+V).

Classification bits are very simple. Normally, each non-zoning brush is classified into all sectors that it touches, and whenever any of those sectors is visible, the brush is added to rendering. In some cases this is undesirable. You can then mark one classification bit in the brush, and that same bit in the sector(s) that you don't want it to classify into.
For example, lets say that you have a house in a yard, and that the house sticks a bit above the yard wall. It will be classified in the sector above and probably be rendered from the neighbouring yards. If you mark same bit in the house and the above sector, then the house will only be classified in the yard, not in the above sector, and it will not be rendered unless that yard itself is visible.

Visibility bits are a bit more complicated to understand, but simpler to configure. Visibility flags determine from which sector(s) is some non-zoning brush visibile. Note that this take into account _which sector the viewer is viewing from_, not which sectors the brush is in. Visibiity flags can work in two different modes per sector - include and exclude. You choose the mode using the radio button on the sector property page. When in include mode, only those brushes that have at least one same flag as current sector will be visible. When in exclude mode, those will _not_ be visible.
For example, if the current sector that the view is in is in include mode, and the current sector has only flag 4 set, then only those brushes that have flag 4 set will be visible from it. If it is in exclude mode, then those that have flag 4 set will _not_ be visible. Usual usage is when you have some extra detailed scene, and you want to remove the overhead imposed by the surrounding geometry. Then you can use exclude to remove some of the extra geometry, or use include to remove all extra geometry by only allowing those in that scene to be rendered.

[LSD]

yes, i've read this.. he doesnt put it as clear as i'd like ;) but i've got it working thru trial and error.  This can be used in conjunction with multiple zoning worldbases, so you dont have to have one huge worldbase, etc. and removes the need to make invisible brushes to occlude contents of other zoning worldbases.

[mr luc]

That's very good, because (ahem) even in the tutorial level, the invisible brushes don't occlude the stairs in the sphere. I've just been making sure that all of my layers inside my buildings are mipped so that at any distance far enough away to not be in sight of it, the rendered mip brush is blank.

[hammerhai]

so. i downloaded the patch too and have a problem now.
you know that 2added brushes melt together when they touch themselfes but sometimes it looks like that from there is a stripe cutted through the complete mapfootground. i think thats called clippingbug or holebug or somethnig else. do you know what i mean? since i have installed the patch i have these stripes when i go in entities or gsc mode and select a brush. than this bush has stripes too. in game i havent these bugs but im afraid that it could happen one day. do you have that too? i also reinstalled ss but it doesnt work

[pompey]

not had that, but i the virtual tree isnt loading the icon pics properly, just get error pics until i select again, no biggie!

[LSD]

You are talking about like theres two layers of polys there, a second on top of the first? And when you select a face, some of the triangles are brighter yellow, like theres two layers? Is this what yer talking about?

[hammerhai]

yeah that was what i meant
but i already fixed that. no problems anymore