GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[Wreck]

In an attempt to turn the Cradle into a map better suited toward multiplayer, I've begun making some modifications to the original background file. Certain rooms have been removed, while pieces of select others have been stripped out. There's still more work to be done, but these few shots should give you an idea of what is going on...


Here is an overview of the play area. As you can see, the ramps to the support struts have been taken out and the railings brought together to close the gaps. The ramps take a long time to traverse and put your battle on hold whenever a player respawns there.


The bottom platform, where Bond follows Trevelyan at the end of the mission, is no longer present. The purpose it serves doesn't work as well in multplayer, so I chose to due away with it. Player character models do not physically climb ladders, leaving them open to attack at the base of the ladder. Also, falling off the platform to your death goes outside of the standard multiplayer formula. If there's nothing to do down there other than to collect something, there's really no point in including it.


The machinery that was housed inside of the two shelters is being plucked out. They require a lot of different textures and many triangles to construct. One is already gone, and the other will be shortly.

I'm also debating on taking out some of the secondary railing textures. Not the railings themselves, but the shadows that are cast on the walkways. They may add some nice detail, but it may not be as necessary in a multiplayer setting.

If you have any questions, comments, ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them.
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[Dragonsbrethren]

I remember I did something like this a while back by removing a few rooms from the room positions file. Of course it wasn't nearly as in-depth as this is currently. I think pulling out the secondary railing shadows would be fine. Maybe you could replace them with more generic darkening of the primary geometry in the direction of the railings (just say it's an overcast day - no defined shadows). How many tris make up the support pylons? I'm wondering if they could be included, but without the ramps leading to them. Attach them to the cradle structure itself. It would give a bit more variety to the top level, but I don't know how it would impact the framerate.

[EternallyAries]

The Frame Rate May be beter Now

That Looks So Cool
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[Wreck]

I've since gotten rid of the other machinery, as well as the secondary shadow detail along the walkway on the bottom level. There is still more work to be done, mostly in secondary shadows, but it's already giving a better performance. I sent DB a test patch to try out, just to see how well it runs on another PC.

Add the support pylons to the cradle structure: I gave this a quick look after your suggestion. It might be a little strange setting it up. The openings are smaller at the pylons than the gaps on the cradle and also face a different direction, which even though is fixable, the way all the railings line up may look awkward. The cradle structure is actually quite well built, using far less tris than you'd think. But sticking the three pylons back in will only consume more processing power, possibly slowing down the match.
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[EternallyAries]

Wow Man I Cant Wate
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[Wreck]

I decided to remove the stairs and replace them with ramps, instead. Cutting all of the stair related draws out, I shaved off 52 tris. However, since I needed to build two double-sided ramps, as well as make one extra underside, the total dropped down to 42. Still, not a bad little savings. I just need to adjust the texturing, but the clipping and all else is taken care of.




The reports from DB weren't too exciting, so I may need to make another updated patch with my more recent changes and see if it makes a difference. The six rooms at the top that construct the "Octagon" have had their secondary railing shadows stripped out, so that should help a bit.
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[bmw]

In your bg file, have you been simply zero-ing out the draw commands or deleting them entirely? I'm not sure it makes any difference or not, but I deleted mine entirely whenever possible (and left the ones where half the vertices were zeroed out).

[EternallyAries]

Hay Wreck How A Bowt I Check
It Out ill Look And Stuff And
if I Get A Slow Down In A Plass
Ill Send pics Wour i Got a Slow
Down So I Can Help You

You Can Send Me Email To Me If You Want Me to Help You
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[Wreck]

BMW: I've been removing the draw commands from the indice files, but leaving the vertices intact. I think I only deleted those from one room. Don't really know if it'd make a difference in framerate, but it'd lessen the amount of data loaded in. That'd likely be more useful in the case of blackouts, which don't occur in Cradle, thankfully.

Aries: I'm beginning to doubt that testing via emulation is really even all that reliable. It's entirely dependent on your computer specs, more than anything else. Even if it ran flawlessly on my PC, it might be horrible on another. There's too many factors to form an accurate judgment. I appreciate your offer, though.
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[EternallyAries]

Im Glad To Help You Wreck Wen You
Need Me Ok
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