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So I was looking through the map files of vindictus in hammer and could help but notice some of the odd techniques used in the maps, that can result in bad fps, huge file size, and overall ugliness. Here are some of the things I've found
Absurd amount of areaportals here. Source should divide these areas automatically, and if not, it's nothing a couple of hints can't solve. No need to use a large amount of rather expensive areaportals.
What are these point lights for? The most I can guess is that they're used for tinting the ambient cubes. Because at 30 brightness they aren't lighting the level. Still, extra runtime cost for something rather trivial, when you could use larger lights with a constant value to light areas
Power of 4 displacements? They don't compress in source (resulting in a larger file size, unless they fixed it) also there's more to render when a power of 3 would look just fine. Also a large amount of nodes.
A lot going on here for something that's 99% background details. and no large structure being used to cull any of it.
Suprisingly small amount of blend modulate textures. They really do make a huge difference and work well on less dense faces. Maybe if they were used you wouldn't need as many power of 4 displacements. VDC link for those who care https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$blendmodulatetexture
Unlit tree branch textures? You could set ignoresurfacenormals to "yes" in prop_static's option, or modify the vertex normal of the tree in order to get smooth lighting.
No mipmaps? So grainy...
I think most of this would be better off as a model. Speaking of which, barely any of the models have lods?
I hope some of these could be fixed.
"The Oversoaker" title is proving to be a lot harder now. When this title first appear (before the Rise update) it was easier to kill certain enemies with the water balloon. You could target the archers and kill them in two balloons. Now (post-Rise) they don't do enough damage (~150 HP. Even with secondary weapon proficiency maxed it doesnt change the multiplier like it does for other secondaries). Your better off targeting the spiders. But those buggers are harder to hit. Would probably need about 1000 balloons back-stocked to get this title post-Rise.
