lol at instances included with l4d2 sdk

[Keldorn]

I looked at the the van instance ( instances/prop_van_lights.vmf ) it has a named light. The red back lights are named "policetail_light" (copy pasted off a police car ?) Which I ended up inadvertently copy pasting around my map and duplicating this named light everywhere in my map. Is this how this starts? (One person start copy pasting a bad light and then you end up with this bad light everywhere?) lol

If you took this van and placed it several times around your map. It would be increasing your map filesize by named lights, and it would be increasing your entity limit. If you guys use those in your map I would double check them over for errors.

[zapwizard]

Good warning. Never cut and paste someone else's content without double checking.

Even Valve doesn't always follow their own best practices. I was evaluating using the caboose saferoom from L4D1 in my map, and it really has horrible brush placement, odd seams and gaps, off grid placement, mis-aligned textures, etc... I ended up making my own from scratch.

[MyClam--]

I looked at the the van instance ( instances/prop_van_lights.vmf ) it has a named light. The red back lights are named "policetail_light" (copy pasted off a police car ?) Which I ended up inadvertently copy pasting around my map and duplicating this named light everywhere in my map. Is this how this starts? (One person start copy pasting a bad light and then you end up with this bad light everywhere?) lol

If you took this van and placed it several times around your map. It would be increasing your map filesize by named lights, and it would be increasing your entity limit. If you guys use those in your map I would double check them over for errors.

this is also likely how the invisible roof vent on hard rain finale happened

a lot of the roof vents in say death toll are on inaccessible buildings and go invisible on low detail. simple copy and paste from one of those into playable space and you have instant problems


also, do non-referenced named entities really take up more space than non-named entities? and is it really taking up significant space? i'd imagine they're built into the lightmap and not represented as entities ingame? even then don't they fill up the non-networked entity table?

i don't know a lot about how light entities work clearly'


though conversely if you use instancing, you only have to change one thing to fix all the light names

[Keldorn]

Good warning. Never cut and paste someone else's content without double checking.

Even Valve doesn't always follow their own best practices. I was evaluating using the caboose saferoom from L4D1 in my map, and it really has horrible brush placement, odd seams and gaps, off grid placement, mis-aligned textures, etc... I ended up making my own from scratch.

I can understand offgrid brushes, when your dealing with grid that won't let you get smaller then 1 inch. Some of those angle cuts just won't line up with the brush beside it.




also, do non-referenced named entities really take up more space than non-named entities? and is it really taking up significant space? i'd imagine they're built into the lightmap and not represented as entities ingame? even then don't they fill up the non-networked entity table?


Named lights, generate 2 versions of lightmaps. One for on and one for off. I'm also sure they use more memory in the game. I've sometimes noticed jittery framerates when near those lights.
(Specially when those named lights are near areaportals they tend to cause framerate issues)

Once you name a light it becomes dynamic, thus becomes part of the limited edict space.

[MyClam--]

Named lights, generate 2 versions of lightmaps. One for on and one for off. I'm also sure they use more memory in the game. I've sometimes noticed jittery framerates when near those lights.
(Specially when those named lights are near areaportals they tend to cause framerate issues)

Once you name a light it becomes dynamic, thus becomes part of the limited edict space.

really? i would imagine the compiler is smart enough to check whether or not a light has any input to turn on/off before doing a second lightmap pass using that light entity

same with whether a light is considered dynamic

but i guess i didn't write the radiosity/light compiler

[Keldorn]

The compiler is incredibly stupid.

[Fisher122]

Good warning. Never cut and paste someone else's content without double checking.

Even Valve doesn't always follow their own best practices. I was evaluating using the caboose saferoom from L4D1 in my map, and it really has horrible brush placement, odd seams and gaps, off grid placement, mis-aligned textures, etc... I ended up making my own from scratch.

Remember L4D was made by Turtlerock Studios before Valve took over and polished it. The bulk of Left 4 Dead maps were finished before Valve got their hands on them.