Are small areas inherently better than large areas?

[Legacy_Groove Widdit]

               In the toolset manual it says to try to use smaller areas - for what seems to be cosmetic reasons. I know large areas take longer to load, but is there any inherent reason to use small areas? Do large areas use more processor or crash your system?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Leurnid]

               Large areas do use more processing power and can, if loaded with enough stuff, lag or crash a system, especially an older machine or one with a less robust graphics card.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Groove Widdit]

               Thanks for telling me that. I'll keep it in mind. My computer is somewhat older, and I want to be considerate to the players.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               While it is true that larger areas do cause increased resource usage, I can tell you from personal experience, if you build smartly, avoiding frivolous / gratuitous and embracing good scripting and building principles Areas of up to 16x16 tiles (*total 256 tiles) are no problem. I run a module with 1337+ Areas, most of these areas are 16x16 in size. No lag, no crash, no resets. Sweet and stable as any server or any game I've found yet.

NWN is a GREAT game engine.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ehye_khandee, 18 mai 2012 - 11:55 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_NWN DM]

               A 32x32 area takes forever to cross... and can take quite some time to load when you enter.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               A 16x16 area or larger may work without lag under optimal scripting conditions, BUT if you want areas to feel populated then smaller areas are better. I use 8x8 areas, and load them up with creatures, puzzles, and points of interest. They run efficiently, AND are active spaces with numerous points of interest, and secrets. Working in tight spaces also forces me to use every tile to its fullest potential. My goal is to avoid the vacant space syndrome I've seen in many NWN modules.

The goal of design should be to focus on increasing "surface area" rather than area size. By "surface" I mean points of engagement for the player.

Edit: Yes, 8x8 is very small, and a real challenge to work with. 12x12 is likely a good size as well, and seems to be the sweet spot that enables a PC to get lost in the area, and yet still have an efficient use of resources.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 19 mai 2012 - 03:43 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Leurnid]

               I like the idea of packing a lot of interesting content into smaller spaces, but I also appreciate the utility a big space can serve for creating a sense of scale or grandeur.

On my current city project, I am using a couple large areas to help create a sense of overall scale (8x24 grand boulevard 18X14 dock), but over half of those areas aren't walkable terrain. Instead of large (16x16) district maps, I am using a lot of narrow, medium length areas for side streets and a even more small areas for snug little alleys, tangled little neighborhoods, and clandestine urban grottoes.

I too think I can do a lot more with tight spaces, and am only going to use the bigs sparingly to illustrate scale.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Groove Widdit]

               I want to play it when you finish. I used the largest possible area for the hub of my mod - expansive outdoors type deal. I'll be careful about loading it up with stuff after reading your post.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               On the point about performance: larger areas do take longer to load and tend to cause more lag, especially if you put a lot into them.

On the main point, about the use of large areas: trying to keep area size down to under 16x16 is a good guideline, but it shouldn't be treated as a rule. It depends what you're trying to accomplish. There are situations where using a large area can be not only effective but nearly essential. To take one example: the main flying area I'm building in Sanctum 3 is 32x32, the maximum size possible. I did that for effect, in order to give the player a sense of feeling that the sky they were traveling in was an expansive space. Smaller sky areas linked together would have taken away from that effect. But because it's a sky, which by definition should look more or less empty compared to a ground level or inside area, I was able to keep it light enough to perform reasonably well.

In my first module I made the "first time builder's mistake" of creating a number of large areas. In the "version 4" rework I'm doing right now, I'm cutting those larger areas up into pieces and linking them together. The largest one I have left is 280 tiles, but most of the others are in the 150 range or less. I can't say there's a hard and fast rule about it (as I said, it depends on what you're trying to do with the area), but as Henesua said much of the time 150 tiles or less seems to work well for me.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 19 mai 2012 - 01:07 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Leurnid wrote...

Large areas do use more processing power and can, if loaded with enough stuff, lag or crash a system, especially an older machine or one with a less robust graphics card.

Lagging? maybe, Crashing? hardly

it depends on a tileset, default bioware tilesets can be used to create 32x32 areas without problem even on old graphic cards, yes it takes longer to load but it also depends on placeables usage. The more placeable the worse and a 32x32areas probably needs many of them.

Such area won't load longer than four area of 8x8 would.

Still creating such big areas is very difficult as it takes four times more time to design them and finish them. Something to consider as well.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_kalbaern]

               While I keep my own areas at 15x15 or smaller (most smaller infact), when building I often first build a "region" that is 30x30 or even 32x32 first as a template. Then I dissect it into 4 to 9 smaller areas.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...

it depends on a tileset, default bioware tilesets can be used to create 32x32 areas without problem even on old graphic cards, yes it takes longer to load but it also depends on placeables usage. The more placeable the worse and a 32x32areas probably needs many of them.

Such area won't load longer than four area of 8x8 would.

Still creating such big areas is very difficult as it takes four times more time to design them and finish them. Something to consider as well.

An 8x8 area has (2^3)^2 = 64 tiles. A 32x32 area has (2^5)^2 = 1024 tiles. That's 16 times as large as an 8x8 area, not 4 times as large. It may be 4x as long on an edge, but the total size is given by the area, which scales as the product of the edge lengths.

That's one reason you need to be careful in choosing area size. Doubling the length on each side quadruples the area. Quadrupling the length on each side multiplies the total area by 16. A 32x32 area is MUCH larger than an 8x8.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

AndarianTD wrote...

An 8x8 area has (2^3)^2 = 64 tiles. A 32x32 area has (2^5)^2 = 1024 tiles. That's 16 times as large as an 8x8 area, not 4 times as large. It may be 4x as long on an edge, but the total size is given by the area, which scales as the product of the edge lengths.

That's one reason you need to be careful in choosing area size. Doubling the length on each side quadruples the area. Quadrupling the length on each side multiplies the total area by 16. A 32x32 area is MUCH larger than an 8x8.

Yea, i forgot. This doesnt change my post in any way. Its definitely, possible with bio tilesets (I have one 32x30 in my module and its fine - yet I must admit I have minimum placeables inside) but not really recommended.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <dropping in to visit...>

henesua wrote...
...
I use 8x8 areas, and load them up with creatures, puzzles, and points of interest. They run efficiently, AND are active spaces with numerous points of interest, and secrets. Working in tight spaces also forces me to use every tile to its fullest potential. My goal is to avoid the vacant space syndrome I've seen in many NWN modules.

The goal of design should be to focus on increasing "surface area" rather than area size. By "surface" I mean points of engagement for the player.

And you do it very well. As unfinished as Arnheim was, it felt very alive and immersive. Kudos again.

Now extend that philosophy even further into the topology of the areas themselves. IMO it is a mistake to simply try to stitch together hundreds of geographically accurate but rather bland large areas. At the same time, I want to really give a sense of immensity to the world... How to do both? Variable density of points of interest and shortcuts/overland maps :-) <getting off topic, old man>
Heh. Patience grasshopper. <grasshopper? did you just call me a bug?!>
What? No! I just... Oh, hush, bird. <*raven glower*>

Edit: Yes, 8x8 is very small, and a real challenge to work with. 12x12 is likely a good size as well, and seems to be the sweet spot that enables a PC to get lost in the area, and yet still have an efficient use of resources.

I thought long and hard about the optimum size of the template areas for the Regional mod system, taking into account exactly what you are talking about. I settled on 13x13 for those reasons and my own quirk that I like odd numbers. They give me a center tile and center tiles on the edges. 13x is also quite large enough for expansive outdoors, but small enough to work well on my old laptop (which was a huge consideration then).

I also like the technique of multiple small areas being in one map so transitions are quick. A 32x32 area that is mostly black wall loads pretty quickly and offers lots of room for 9 or 12 small areas, or one very long corridor/path (remembering that we are not stuck with square shapes).

<...at 1313 mockingbird lane>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__Guile]

               For Server Modules, yes larger areas cause lag from area load time (& server uploading the areas to the players), which chews up precious Internet Bandwidth on the server, thereby causing more lagg, especially if people are constantly loading big maps...

Needless to say the functions which check distance between objects can cause serious draw on CPU resources in large areas... (Which some AOE Spell Scripts Use btw)

As far as Single player modules though, I'd say large areas are fine, provided you do not go overboard with NPCs & Placeables, that's where those huge area designers go all wrong, worse yet they often place the stores in the same big area too (usually town), which increase lag all the more...

Anyway, if you want a clean, efficient module, be sure to consider first what you are building, secondly, consider the end user, maybe they are still using this old Pentium 4 / 2.0 GHz crummy CPU with onboard graphics (not recommended)...

Nothing larger than 10 x 10 is really needed unless you are making an outdoor map for Horses, you can always make more areas to create huge towns, that's what I do anyway, I'm always trying to keep maps 8 X 8 or less whenever possible.  Every builder has their style / taste when building, preference matters only to the builder, but the player is the one that notices the difference...

In my first module I made the mistake of making big maps, and for that reason we saw a lot of internet bandwidth usage early on, nobody was overspawning or anything, I was watching, but as they were constantly loading areas, it was laggy to all other players.  The reason that is, is because your bandwidth will choke all other players connected when someone loads a huge map... (Note that)


Hope that helps you, and someone else maybe too...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par _Guile, 19 mai 2012 - 04:39 .