45 réponses à ce sujet

[DahliaLynn]

Would anyone know if it would be better on memory load if I placed the creatures in the area as opposed to the cutscene editor?

[Beerfish]

200? 200? ) You are pushing the limits DL



Why do you need 200 creatures if I may ask?

[DahliaLynn]

you wouldn't want Alistair's Kingly Wedding to PC Queen to be anemic would you ?

I have it in the editor and it is running...but..you know. not smoothly

Modifié par DahliaLynn, 09 septembre 2010 - 08:41 .

[BloodsongVengeance]

dahlia, in which portion can you set the character LOD?



for the distant folks, if you set their lod lower, it might work a lot better. you could also inspect the SP cutscenes for the city elf origin story narration. they do a few crowd scenes in them. not 200, im sure, though.

[SilentCid]

You could do some clever camera shots to make the presence of 200 people be there.

[mikemike37]

you might also consider makign the cutscene a bink... even if it runs on your machine smoothly, it may not work so well on low-end machines.



EDIT: involves player character. dumb suggestion, ignore me.

[DahliaLynn]

wow, all your suggestions are fabulous. Sadly I have thought/tried them all before posting this though

I can't make a bink because PC is involved as well as other dead or alive characters that will show up based on that. I have already set LOD to the most nearest attendees to the cameras and low to the farther ones, Most of the cam shots do not show them. But whenever they come into field of view, that's when things get choppy. (nice how the toolset works that way actually)
I also copied the crowd in one of the vanillla scenes that was most likely used for a bink...and not in game (probably coronation)

So in general I was only wondering if there was any advantage to placing the less used crowd in the Area as opposed to the cutscene. But thank you for your answers

Modifié par DahliaLynn, 10 septembre 2010 - 01:26 .

[DarthParametric]

Sprites (i.e. VFX) for distant characters are also an option. I believe that's what they did for the battle at Ostagar as you pass over the bridge based on the fx_sa_comb_XX series of images, and it's an age-old trick in games for large crowds in stadiums and the like.

[Lord Methrid]

You want to forge an army of guests? Sounds like a battle! But I do concur, it would take months to render out one sing shot of that many characters in one screen

[Lord Methrid]

EDIT: The forums are broken! Double posted by accident, my appologies.

Modifié par Lord Methrid, 10 septembre 2010 - 05:38 .

[DahliaLynn]

Oh, yes, sprites were an option I had explored as well. I tried, but it didn't really look that good,

What I will try would be to get rid of the level effects of two large fires already located in the chamber. That might help. (even though I really like the way they look in certain frames)

@Lord Methrid: The scene already works Only certain areas are very choppy.

This is a shot of the draft. Would there be any VFX that could help me achieve an effect of this type that I don't know about?

Modifié par DahliaLynn, 10 septembre 2010 - 09:55 .

[Lord Methrid]

Now that's a party! I like how the lady looks like your avatar lol

[DahliaLynn]

Lord Methrid wrote...

Now that's a party! I like how the lady looks like your avatar lol

oh please disregard the dress mesh and headmorph dissonance ...that was just for testing

[DarthParametric]

Hrmmm...tricky. The people up the back are LOD3 models?

[DahliaLynn]

DarthParametric wrote...

Hrmmm...tricky. The people up the back are LOD3 models?

I am not sure what you mean by LOD3, but in the back they are mostly all set to low. Only those in CUs and Medium shots throughout the scene progression are set to high/cutscene LOD

Modifié par DahliaLynn, 10 septembre 2010 - 10:09 .

[DarthParametric]

There are three levels of detail LOD0, LOD2, LOD3. LOD0 is the "high" one, but I'm wondering whether the "low" one is LOD2 or LOD3. I suspect it may be LOD2. It would be interesting to see if you could select the LOD3 model directly for those at the back. By default you will likely only be shown LOD0 models.

[DahliaLynn]

Well, once again I am not sure about model selection. The settings I am familiar with in the cutscene editor itself are "Cutscene" "High" "Medium" and "Low" per creature selection in the object inspector.



With each setting I make, the level of detail rises or diminishes. I was not under the impression that there are creature specific Models that can be placed based on LOD "models". Is there?

[DarthParametric]

Ah, it has a medium setting. In that case it sounds like High = LOD0, Medium = LOD2 and Low = LOD3. I've never played with the cutscene editor so I was unsure how it worked. I thought if it only went as low as LOD2 then you could force it to use LOD3, but it seems like it already does that.



I'm not sure if you have a lot of alternatives beyond thinning the numbers. Possibly you could try making some super low poly character models for the background, but they wouldn't look very good. Too bad you can't do some sort of bluescreen-type cutscene that plays a foreground live cutscene over a background pre-rendered video clip.

[DahliaLynn]

Oh yes, that would have been grand.

Even if I thin out the numbers, the change in performance isn't equivalent to the relative visual changes.

I do have a feeling that the two fires located in the chamber might be loading the system as well.

(I am also using extra lighting and sun beam VFX , but it seems to make little difference.)

From my experience in previous cutscenes, it seems the large fire really affects the performance, even when only two characters are involved in a simple environment.

I'm going to try and experiment with reediting the original level associated with the scene, removing the fire FX

[-Semper-]

why won't you just make the crowd scene a bink with the player character involved but without interaction? now when it comes to interaction it's mostly in dialogue i would guess, then you can create a dialogue stage with far lesser audience and clever camera movement. afterwards you can blend in your video again to keep up the illusion.

Modifié par -Semper-, 10 septembre 2010 - 11:43 .

[DahliaLynn]

-Semper- wrote...

why won't you just make the crowd scene a bink with the player character involved but without interaction? now when it comes to interaction it's mostly in dialogue i would guess, then you can create a dialogue stage with far lesser audience and clever camera movement. afterwards you can blend in your video again to keep up the illusion.

Well, this is a one shot cutscene. It does not involve player interaction, otherwise the idea would have been great

[-Semper-]

then change this one shot cutscene to two shots. while the first shot shows the mass audience to applaud and all that which can be displayed as a video the camera could then turn around to show the wedding with mass audience sounds in the background but fewer people visible.

[DarthParametric]

You could possibly do something like that if you had the bride in a dress with a veil or other headdress that obscures her face. Have your opening shots showing the crowd and the obscured bride as pre-rendered video, then zoom into a tightly cropped real-time shot of Alistair lifting the veil and running through whatever ceremony you plan on.

[DahliaLynn]

-Semper- wrote...

then change this one shot cutscene to
two shots. while the first shot shows the mass audience to applaud and
all that which can be displayed as a video the camera could then turn
around to show the wedding with mass audience sounds in the background
but fewer people visible.

I was considering that. but, I really prefer the PC be visible as in the
above shot ...since I have several of these shots where all are viewed
together (especially the ending climax part of the scene) and I prefer
not to change that effect.

Just for knowledge sake, I can insert a bink *and* a continuous cam shot before or after live
animations shots? (as in all in one cutscene?)
I would think for this to happen I would have to connect several cutscenes together,
therefore making a load screen appear in between shots, which wouldn't
be optimal.

Modifié par DahliaLynn, 10 septembre 2010 - 12:03 .

[DarthParametric]

The vanilla game stitches pre-rendered shots and live cutscenes together fairly seamlessly in a couple of spots as I recall.