5.5.11 Tips for Map Creation
Here are some general tips for creating maps to use with Crystal Space:
-
Try to use only textures that have sizes that are a power of two: 128*64 would
be okay for example, 192*32 is not good. Crystal Space can handle any size of
textures, but textures that are a power of two are most efficent. Also try to
limit yourself to sizes below 256. Textures larger than that can't be handled
for example by 3D/FX cards. Crystal Space will do its best to work
around that problem, but it is pretty easy for you to avoid.
-
Avoid open spaces. You will get best performance, if you have lots of
occluders in your map.
-
Check your map while you create it. If there are spots that do not perform
very well, try to change these areas. Often it is enough to close an opening
in a wall to get significantly better performance.
-
Use textures for details. It is a common error trying to model every little
detail with brushes. Often it looks better and is much faster if you paint
the details on some texture and apply that texture to a plain wall.
-
When adding lights to your level be sure to make use of the entity "light"
rather than "light_spot" and "light_enviroment". If you use the latter 2
you will experience problems running your level under OpenGL rendering
under Crystal Space.
-
Align your textures properly. While working with normal brushes make sure,
that "texture lock" is not enabled. Enable "texture lock" only, if you
are moving objects, that have been thoroughly aligned (usually only some
decorative stuff).
-
Read the reference section for `map2cs' (see section 4.3 Quake Map Converter (
map2cs
)). `map2cs'
provides quite a few features, that have not been covered in this tutorial,
such as mirrors and volumetric fog.
If you know other tips, please email them to me at thieber@gmx.net.
I would also really like to receive some prefabs, so if you have created nice
furniture or things to use in maps, that you want to donnate to the public,
please send them to me.
This document was generated
using texi2html