Level Design Optimizing for performance-your tips and tricks

[Catalavos]

Hey guys,
Just want to pick your brains a little for some help with optimization. Aside from hiding things behind hills I'm pretty much in the dark when it comes to getting better performance. I'm especially looking for tips on how to get trees and other high-poly stuff to look good both close and far away. The RS guys seem to have found a way to get pretty great performance while still having a TON of vegetation in the scene.

-One stumbling block of note is how to solve the "zoom" problem as it relates to draw distance. This becomes extra-apparent when using magnified optics (scopes and tank sights).

Thanks in advance,
Catalavos

 

[-=}WoLvErInE{=-]

Crating more than 1 LOD is always good.
Material shaders that turn off certain things..IE: normal maps, AO...etc
Also use Material instance constant as much as you can, helps loading and cashing shaders quicker and better loading times.

 

[Twrecks]

Cull distance in actor properties. Alternatively you can make cull distance volumes.

Cull distance is very important for Decals and Emitters, which are resource hogs.

Based on my fields of wheat tests:

Spraying the map with static mesh wheat dropped FPS severly, even with a short cull distance, which wasn't good.

Wheat applied as a Terrain material foliage is very resource friendly (plus got the desired "wave"), while deco layers are marginally less, and required a MIC to get the "wave" which didn't work.

 

[Sgt.NightFire]

I found a new one on this page about backfaces:

http://evilmrfrank.com/Optimizing.html

A surface that we will never see like the back of a wall at the end of a map, using the "removed surface material" it will not be used by the lighting and no texture will be rendered so you can get a better performance on your map.

 

[nymets1104]

Cull distance in actor properties. Alternatively you can make cull distance volumes.

Cull distance is very important for Decals and Emitters, which are resource hogs.

Based on my fields of wheat tests:

Spraying the map with static mesh wheat dropped FPS severly, even with a short cull distance, which wasn't good.

Wheat applied as a Terrain material foliage is very resource friendly (plus got the desired "wave"), while deco layers are marginally less, and required a MIC to get the "wave" which didn't work.

Would anyone care to share their cull distance volume settings?

The samples given here seem to be a little aggressive as I tried them and got a ton of popping up at close ranges an not seeing much of a change in FPS for the trouble.

 

[Spaehling]

Think and plan small!

@nymets1104

Would anyone care to share their cull distance volume settings?

The samples given here seem to be a little aggressive as I tried them and got a ton of popping up at close ranges an not seeing much of a change in FPS for the trouble.

Check Out the Custom Maps or StockMaps, you should be able to copy paste the Cull Distance Volumes.
But to be true, the best is to spend some hours on a saturday or sunday and play with the values for your map.

edit:
@cata
iam not sure if you able to change the values of the LOD Level. But if you can play with Assets like the tress, if you wanna use an LOD Level, but want to avoid the switching/streaming of the model ist self. Maybe you are able to
increase the distances for each level.

 

[nymets1104]

Think and plan small!

@nymets1104


Check Out the Custom Maps or StockMaps, you should be able to copy paste the Cull Distance Volumes.
But to be true, the best is to spend some hours on a saturday or sunday and play with the values for your map.

edit:
@cata
iam not sure if you able to change the values of the LOD Level. But if you can play with Assets like the tress, if you wanna use an LOD Level, but want to avoid the switching/streaming of the model ist self. Maybe you are able to
increase the distances for each level.

Well I played on Ultra and High settings with two versions of my map, one with culling volumes using the values linked above and one without. I got nearly identical framerates with both, possibly even slightly higher FPS with the non culling volume map....which seems odd. Is it unheard of to publish a map without a culling volume?