[Help] Lightmap atlas

[pr|Zer0]

Hey
I have a question about atlases. Just finished LM'ing 6789 objects on final, generated atlases on 2048 setting and I end up with 170 lightmap atlases.
now, is it good or bad? on other maps I saw like 35 atlases

[Rhino]

bad, very bad... Are you sure you generated them at 2048?

Muttrah has 4,447 statics and 39 atlases. At the very most your map should have around 60 lightmap atlases for that amount of objects but that sounds like quite a lot of objects to me... What objects are you mainly using?

One thing you should also remember that in a lot of cases, less is more.

[pr|Zer0]

Yes, but now I deleted all atlases and trying to regenerate as we speak. Might be a bug because editor crashed 3 times during LM'ing and restarted using " continue previous" feature.
Im using ME objects ( some from muttrah and rest similar to basrah/ramiel). Im not mixing them, ive read your post about optimisation

[Rhino]

Yes, but now I deleted all atlases and trying to regenerate as we speak. Might be a bug because editor crashed 3 times during LM'ing and restarted using " continue previous" feature.

Resume previous shouldn't be a problem, although you should check for obsolete lightmaps when generating the atlas.

And ye, good plan on deleting all the atlases before regenerating them, it could be down to you generating them at 1024 before and it doesn't delete the non-used ones after generating fresh ones.

Im using ME objects ( some from muttrah and rest similar to basrah/ramiel). Im not mixing them, ive read your post about optimisation

Ye, was thinking more do you use many dest objects like the me village buildings on Kashan? If so, they use twice as much lightmap space as a normal building since they need lightmaps for both there normal and wreck geoms.

[pr|Zer0]

no...im very low on destroyables.
About "checking for obsolete lightmaps" when I use that i got messages in red stating "Could not open XXXX for delete" Make sure its not opened for edit" or something like that. Does "obsolete LM check" has any effect at all?

LE. I use some afghan objects. Are they using the same texture palettes as the rest of ME buildings?

[Rhino]

no...im very low on destroyables.
About "checking for obsolete lightmaps" when I use that i got messages in red stating "Could not open XXXX for delete" Make sure its not opened for edit" or something like that. Does "obsolete LM check" has any effect at all?

That message is good, it means its found a lightmap not used by the map and as such, doesn't pack it into the atlas.

LE. I use some afghan objects. Are they using the same texture palettes as the rest of ME buildings?

No, they use their own unique textures and these objects are really bad for lightmap usage also. Not only that, they are just really bad statics all round...

You also shouldn't be using them in your map. The Afghan v1 statics (the one you see on Asad Khal), the Afghan v2 statics (the ones you see on Lashkar Valley mainly but also lots of other maps) and the Afghan v2 North statics (the ones you see on Korengal and Kokan) are all being phased out of the mod due to significant issues with all of them.

[pr|Zer0]

ok...all afghan statics will be removed. Thank you.
Will come back with the outcome

[pr|Zer0]

one last thing: the distribution of the objects within the map doesnt influence the number of atlases? more spread they are, more atlases you have.
deleting old atlases - no effect, still 170 LM atlases
have some hand placed vegitation - will check the "?bject is overgrowth" option to see if will make any difference
removing 191 dest objects and replacing with regular statics
out of ideas if the above fails

ATM hand deleting all LM that show at "check for obsolete" LM option

[Rhino]

No, the atlases are packed by packing the largest lightmaps first and working its way down to the smallest ones.

[pr|Zer0]

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