large map size vs max visible distance

[sithlord]

Yes, the maps in ESF are generally very large rooms, which the HL engine is not especially suited for...The mappers compensate by putting in very large textures and keeping maps very simple so everybody's computers run the game smoothly...But on a number of maps, I've noticed that once you get past a certain distance the wall is not rendered at all and simply disappears...

What I am suggesting is that the ESF staff and mappers scale down the entire game proportionally, shrinking the maps enough to see the entire world rendered, and the characters so that they dont stand as tall as the trees on Namek etc.

I know it wont be easy to scale everything down proportionally (all the energy attacks and player speeds and everything would need to be scaled as well), but if it could be done, the game would look immensely better on certain very large maps...

Or maybe the problematic maps could just be changed/scaled/whatever for the next version, i guess that would be a lot easier

 

[computer addic]

If they make maps smaller n00bs like me will get owned by melee 100 % of the time

 

[Vertigo]

By scaling down the models, attack, sprites you could make the maps smaller while losing no percived space, since the perception of size is relative the the objects around you in a virtual world like HL. The only true problem with this is that it would take time to do and there would be hit boxes to redo and a whole buch of new stuff to do with the models and custom models would have to be rescaled to the smaller size. and since 1.2 is coming out (soon) it would delay the release of it further. Also there is know way of knowing what the effects of the decrease in size to the models, attack, sprites would make the game look or play like. But since I have never made a HL model in my life i cant speculate on such things.

So in summary you would have alot of work on your hands if you decided to move with this idea, although there is some merit here, but any percived merit by this idea would have to be seen in the eyes of the development team.

 

[Shuyin]

Thats what they did in beta 1.0, if you compare it with alpha you'll notice the model sizes are smaller now.
The maps dont seem to be a problem for me, and scalling it down a bit wouldnt make much difference to it now, it'd just be troublsome.

 

[necro0]

You never realize the scaled down models, just like if you were a mouse your whole life, you wouldn't know the difference.

 

[DragonDude]

This may help a tiny bit, but probably not enough to notice.
When your FPS takes a hit in Half-Life, it is usually because there are many, many brushes being drawn to your viewable area at one time, not usually because of the size of those individual brushes.
Think of it this way, a single block 100x100 units is much easier for the engine to draw and for your computer to handle than a block 100x100 units made up of 1x1 unit blocks.