Precompiled Mission Lighting?
by Dreamer · in Torque Game Engine · 06/07/2005 (6:57 pm) · 3 replies
I've got a little problem...
Thanks to FruitBatInShades wonderful building sets, I now have some pretty neat complex geometry, and a whole lot of it!
This brings us to the problem...
Evidently when you add complex interior objects, the time to light a mission goes up, the more complex the object the more time it takes, the more objects that need lighted, even more time is required. When you get to a city as dense as the one I've made, the game literally appears to freeze for upwards of 5 real life minutes. In fact the only way I was able to figure out that mission lighting was the cause, was to run the game through a debugger while this part was going on.
So here's the deal. I've got fairly recent hardware, I've spent alot of time making a nice city, reducing the number of buildings is NOT an option. And this is ONLY an issue on the first run through a level. So therefore it stands to reason the best option would be to ship my game with precompiled mission lighting files, when I'm ready to ship. The problem as I understand it, is that mission lighting is REALLY hardware specific, and so it appears I would need a whole lot of mission lighting files.
Am I wrong?
Are there any other options?
Has anyone maybe tried to adjust the engine so lighting doesn't happen at mission load, but simply on an as needed basis?
I figure it might be a little strange to enter a level and watch buildings etc magically pop to life one by one as they are lit, but I think it would be ALOT more tolerable than waiting 5 minutes for mission lighting to finish up...
Any thoughts?
Thanks to FruitBatInShades wonderful building sets, I now have some pretty neat complex geometry, and a whole lot of it!
This brings us to the problem...
Evidently when you add complex interior objects, the time to light a mission goes up, the more complex the object the more time it takes, the more objects that need lighted, even more time is required. When you get to a city as dense as the one I've made, the game literally appears to freeze for upwards of 5 real life minutes. In fact the only way I was able to figure out that mission lighting was the cause, was to run the game through a debugger while this part was going on.
So here's the deal. I've got fairly recent hardware, I've spent alot of time making a nice city, reducing the number of buildings is NOT an option. And this is ONLY an issue on the first run through a level. So therefore it stands to reason the best option would be to ship my game with precompiled mission lighting files, when I'm ready to ship. The problem as I understand it, is that mission lighting is REALLY hardware specific, and so it appears I would need a whole lot of mission lighting files.
Am I wrong?
Are there any other options?
Has anyone maybe tried to adjust the engine so lighting doesn't happen at mission load, but simply on an as needed basis?
I figure it might be a little strange to enter a level and watch buildings etc magically pop to life one by one as they are lit, but I think it would be ALOT more tolerable than waiting 5 minutes for mission lighting to finish up...
Any thoughts?
Torque Owner Dirk "dirkk" Krause