The "no touch" trick
This is a small tutorial for Half-Life map making.
Back to main page.
Go to HL sky.

Take a look a the two rooms.
 
 

touch map
The columns touch the floor.
notouch map
The columns touch nothing.

The difference? The game will be more smooth at right. Why? The columns and the ceiling lamps don't touch the floor, the walls or the ceiling. They float in the air, at one unit from everything. The players don't see the difference, the computers do. At left: Poly are at 127 / 97 / 91. At right: 44 / 33 / 40!

Here are the same rooms, view with the "r_drawflat 1" command. Now you have your computer's point of view. 


 

The columns touch the floor.
The columns touch nothing.
 
 
The columns touch the floor.
The columns touch nothing.
 

At left, each column cut the floor, the wall and the ceiling in small parts. This is the way the engine works when two objects (column + floor) touch each other.


More parts = more poly = more work for your computer = slow game play



In a small room like this one, it’s not important. In a big and complex room, doing this trick can make you believe that you have upgraded your P-mmx-200 with 4 meg video card to a P2-450 with 16 meg video card! (And you keep the 2000$.)
 
 

What to check by yourself?

  1. Download the two maps: touch.zip
  2. Put the files "touch.bsp" and "notouch.bsp" in your halflife/valve/maps directory.
  3. Run Half-Life with the "-dev" parameter, bring the console and type "map/touch". Or in Windows command line, type "c:\sierra\half-life\hl.exe -dev - console +map touch".
  4. Don't move your player. Bring the console, type "r_speeds 1". Remember the numbers.
  5. Bring the console, type "r_drawflat 1". Look around. Bring the console, type "r_drawflat 0".
  6. Bring the console, type "map notouch".
  7. Do again #4 and #5, and compare.
  8. You can download the Worldcraft files: touch-wc.zip
Happy fragging! 

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