I have a larger outdoor area to my map (which i know is a large mistake, but w/o it the map wouldn't be anything) and my w-polys are HIGH. the problem is if i use vis it will lower marines visibility, and gives aliens a severe advantage.

I've spent a lot of time trying to balance this outdoor area using lighting and other things, and i would hate for it to be unbalanced because i ran over the w-poly limit and had to limit visibility. here's pics:
2500 w-polys:




1380 w-polys:





so what can i do to lower my w-poly w/o ruining my map?

those r_speeds are HUGE!!!

umm, the best a can help is something along the lines of:
+dont use 5 brushes when 2 will do just fine
+noone will notice if your pillar has 24 sides, until their framerate hits the same number
+HL hates big open areas

if those help, good
if not, i just BSed that anyway, ive never had to deal with big open areas yet in my mapping experience
srry i couldnt be more helpful

:edit:
you didnt use VIS??
or am i reading your post wrong?

those are all cubes that you see, some clipped, except the vases which are only 6 sided. i tried taking out the pillars (in the first pic, the ones i'm right next to) and it barely lowered my w-polys, i dunno why it's so huge.

how can i not use vis to compile? that's the vis you're talking about right? or am i just confusing myself?


clarify: in vis i didn't want to lower the max VIS distance. that should clear things up.

i think its your pyramid that is giving you your r_speeds problems
if just looking at your pyramid gives you THAT many w_polys, then you need to simplify that thing alot
(note, to actually "see" the w_polys, open console and type "gl_wireframe 2")

try moving those steps on the pyramid back a bit so that the leading edge is inline with the smooth bit on either side of them.

I think they're simply something fundamentally wrong with such a layout. Sure, you could scrape off a few polies here and there, but what you're trying to create isn't something HL likes: a large open area with lots of detail. Throw in a massive 1300+wpoly pyramid in the background and you've got a serious headache.
One way you might be able to get r_speeds back to semi reasonable counts is by putting a visblocker between the pyramid and the outdoor area. This would probably ruin the effect you're after, but some sort of facade with a nice donut shaped hallway should keep the pyramid and the outdoor area from seeing each-other.

Some wpoly scraping advice:
Use stairs sparingly. I know that in this case they're important for the effect, but I wouldn't be surprised if just turning those stairs into a ramp would cut wpolies by 250 or more.
Increase texture scale on large outdoor areas.
Make sure that if you do build a complex area, there are effective visibility blocking constructions to other complex areas.
Try to build the same with fewer polies. The torches for example, remove the holding thingy and just keep the torch itself. Multiply these few polies by a lot of torches and you get a lot of polies.
Use gl_wireframe 1 to see how faces are cut up and try to prevent serious cut-ups, either with 1-unit gaps, func_walls or rebuilding.
Also use gl_wireframe 2 (and a compile with full vis) to check the quality of your visblockers.

thanks for the help!
I have an idea! it isn't really what i created that has a massive poly count, but the shadows that the torches are creating that create a massive poly count a torch bouncing it's shadow around those pillars would easily quadruple it's w-poly.

i'll double check this theory when i get home from work and create a day light level and remove the torches.

alright, so lighting does NOT change the poly count, i would like to thank someone for warning me mk time to nerf my map a bit... a lot...




( i know i'm responding to myself)

edit: any chance there is a way to create 1 brush stairs?

you could create a 1-brush stair, but that brush would have so many faces, it wouldnt help

try turning your torches into func_walls to reduce r_speeds (if they arent already)

the func_wall trick should also work on your stairs (though how much it would reduce is hard to tell without trying)

my torches are currently illusionary, does that count to w-polys?

changing then to ANY entity would reduce w_polys (assuming they touch the pillars)

yeah, func_illusionary works

yeah, i got the 2500 one down to 1100, can't do much more than that i've really kinda stripped that outdoor area. thanx for your help Neo

ahh ty, now i can start makin stuff not func_wall lol