uncadonego on 24/8/2019 at 02:08
Quote Posted by skacky
Another thing to take into account as well is that a brush's face that is flush with another face (like a solid face on an air face) will not produce any cells. This is also the case if you have several brushes stacked on top of each other that have the exact same X and Y dimensions for example. This is why almost none of the roofs have a protrusion in The Sound of a Burrick in a Room.
Quote Posted by R Soul
If you have any circular buildings or arches made with 10+ sided cylinders, try replacing them with 8 sided, aligned by sides.
In the OldDark days, when 10 was the limit, I didn't like 10 sided cylinders because they looked like angular things pretending to be curved, whereas an octagon looks nice if aligned by sides.
Both of these have been helping to reduce cell count a lot. I still have to solid wedge my arches, more roofs to switch to identical X and Y stacks, still playing with the time stamps on brushes, replacing brush architecture with texture instead, using res_cubes instead of air brushes, etc. A lot of stuff.
Still a lot of work to do, but so far cell limit exceeded has dropped to 22,220 cells.
I'm quite surprised at how it is going....
These have all been quite helpful suggestions. Thanks everyone.
Psych0sis on 24/8/2019 at 12:03
Surely now you have enough cells to finish the 97% mission :p
DirkBogan on 24/8/2019 at 12:41
The cells could be used to retain brush furniture, and solid details in rooms. There's really no substitute for solid brush details and trim.
uncadonego on 24/8/2019 at 21:13
Quote Posted by Psych0sis
Surely now you have enough cells to finish the 97% mission :p
That's what I thought the last time, when Unna taught me the time manipulating trick. I just needed to flesh out the interior of one more building, and make a window entrance into one more apartment room elsewhere. I exceeded the limit again.
The one I'm working on is previous to that. I started off again with version 1e, the last version before the cell limit crash. If I can get the cell limit sufficiently down, I would like to expand it and not make the same claustrophobic feeling of The Power of Suggestion.
When I said that 97% thing when my computer stopped running Thief, it was at the point where it
could be released, but it would be nice to expand it if I can. I only wish I had started this build in 2013 instead of before NewDark. It is still built the old way. This is why I am still considering not releasing it or releasing it as something else rather than the continuation of Two Fathers/The Time That Has Passed. I'd like to build something with NewDark in mind from the get-go.....
uncadonego on 26/8/2019 at 16:40
While stacking solids with same X and Y dimensions doesn't increase cell count, I had some wasted time last night experimenting with air brushes.
In OldDark, frequently I would make the floor brush of a street a couple feet high, slightly wider than the air brush next up in height from the ground. This made it look like the foundations were slightly recessed, and the stone work of the outer walls had a slight protruded overhang.
Well, last night I experimented in reducing those "floor" brushes of the streets so that they lined up with the walls, leaving no protrusions. I did it only on one street, and the intersecting street. It made the cell count go up several hundred. I didn't expect that.
On the other hand, one thing I tried implementing last night was based on skacky's earlier comment in this thread:
Quote Posted by skacky
Another thing to take into account as well is that a brush's face that is flush with another face (like a solid face on an air face) will not produce any cells.
I had some window frame solids against an air face, I moved them back so they still showed, but were flush with the air face. This reduced cell count successfully.
trefoilknot on 26/8/2019 at 18:58
Probably a stupid question, but why is there still such a restrictive cell count? With NewDark, almost all of the constraints got bumped up dramatically, but not cell count. Compared to all the other stuff, is changing the limit a very difficult thing to do (e.g., the engine simply can't support it)? Or is it that the powers that be felt that the cell limit shouldn't be raised much, for other reasons?
PinkDot on 27/8/2019 at 11:58
Quote Posted by trefoilknot
Probably a stupid question, but why is there still such a restrictive cell count? With NewDark, almost all of the constraints got bumped up dramatically, but not cell count. Compared to all the other stuff, is changing the limit a very difficult thing to do (e.g., the engine simply can't support it)? Or is it that the powers that be felt that the cell limit shouldn't be raised much, for other reasons?
As Unna mentioned above - technically, this must be due to the choice of using int16 type to represent a cell id number. But I'd like to know why it's a signed integer as opposed to unsigned, which would give us twice as many cells, without using more memory. Having said that, I believe, that this limit is not set in stone and with some work, it should be possible to use int32 (or even uint32) to represent virtually infinite number of cells.
The question is how much work would be involved and if Le Corbeau would bother to ever look at it or not. This would potentially change the file format slightly, but almost each version is backwards incompatible anyway, so I don't see a problem there.
Honestly I believe this is more of an imposed limitation, to keep certain 'discipline' of building. The engine is not very well suited for testing visibility with large number of cells being drawn on screen, so being concerned about overall cell limit makes people more aware of these limitations and focused on optimized building style from start, rather than going crazy with brushwork details and getting stuck after building a few ornate interiors.
uncadonego on 27/8/2019 at 19:02
Ha! That didn't work for me! :laff:
uncadonego on 27/8/2019 at 19:44
Way back in the early 2000's, when I was having pathfinding problems with a mission, zacharias taught me the method of using area brushes where the AI could go, choosing Show Hot, and then computing pathfinding.
I was having to use this method in this mission as well.
Since I've been making adaptations to the architecture to reduce cell count, the pathfinding works without the Show Hot trick.
Just another benefit of building with cell complexity in mind, I suppose.
