CS2 Mapping Academy #10 - VIS Optimization (Counter Strike 2)

welcome to Counterstrike mapping Academy I'm your host Sammy chimona HEI Lu this is the viz optimization guide which has had some updates in Counter-Strike 2 from other source 2 titles big thanks to gcaf for helping with some of the content in this video give him a shout out and the Twitter Linked In the description in this tutorial we will explore a monster topic that is a major determining factor of how optimized your map can be viz stands for the system that computes visibility telling the engine what to draw on the screen when you compile your map the engine will begin to create clusters of voxal that are generated in all areas of the map these cast Rays out to determine what other clusters are visible from where the player is if the engine determines the cluster can't be seen it it calls it from rendering drastically improving frame rates viz Works in conjunction with draw calls and GPU calling to give Counter-Strike 2 smooth frame rates for Competitive Gaming as a map maker it's imperative that your work of art is as accessible as possible unoptimized viz results in unplayable conditions with frame rate spikes debilitating even the strongest of machines having viz be as optimized as possible is a requirement for any sort of competitive consideration let's check out how viz affects your system resources we can see the immediate difference in frame rates with viz turned on compared to when it's turned off Source One did have have its own system of viz which did the same thing but in different ways although there are some similarities it is best to completely throw out what you know about viz in Source One and adopt the more powerful Source 2 framework for optimization that should be great news though as you can kiss goodbye to those pesky Funk details and area portal loopholes that you had to jump through a common misconception about viz that has been pushed through the Community is that there are no more viz leaks this couldn't be further from the truth viz leaks do occur in Source 2 although not in the same way as viz leaks did in Source One the game engine will still leak through even if it's not showing you any of the screen tearing if there are viz leaks in your map which will lead to wasted frame rates and system resources viz does not compute in the 3D Skybox when you set your map type to tell the engine it is a Skybox vmap the compiler will ignore viz while it's building it what this means is that when you are looking into the Skybox everything that you can see will be rendered you won't have the benefit of saving resources and have to keep this in mind when balancing your creation process viz works best in environments that are closed and have corridors floors and ceilings to hide objects this does not work best in open environments where everything is being rendered at once and hard to hide you can create larger environments but it will require many more smokes and mirrors to optimize a map newly introduced to Source 2 in the last half year is a more powerful and robust version of viz halflife Alex uses viz too but valve has pushed the new viz 3.0 to CS2 as well as sandbox this new version is much faster at compiling viz and is not limited to only Computing on the grid as well as other improvements making it more optimized not only for indoor environments but for outdoor environments as well there are multiple types of viz selections that you can make to cater to your specific map to access what kind of is to use go to map map properties and scroll down to the option where it says pre-computed visibility by default full visibility solve will be your selected viz for the majority of the maps you create keeping it on this setting will be the most optimized path if you have a rather large map that is mostly Outdoors you may want to select test map open space B this will lower the size of the boxal that viz creates taking less time to generate viz and creating larger clusters if you don't want to have any viz calculations you can manually disable it this will not create AOSS file and is highly recommended that you avoid using disabled for published Maps because it will not be optimized at all partition solve is a another viz option that works better in open environments you will sacrifice viz accuracy in exchange for faster compiler times with larger clusters as you construct your level using hammer meshes the engine will automatically assign each mesh as a viz contributor by default regardless if you're using Dev materials or Blended display terrain upon compile each of those faces will be a part of the computed cluster ization that occurs you can see what is currently contributing to viz calculations by pressing the visibility contributor button on your Hammer toolbar all nonv contributing parts of your map will be hidden making it easier to identify where potential leaks or mishaps could be occurring by default you'll notice that models are not viz contributors this is because viz wants to build in the most simplistic way possible and the finer details of these props and models will end up creating smaller groups of clusters instead of measuring the big picture if you want them to contribute to viz Mark the checkbox viz uder to make it a part of the computation every mesh created in Hammer by default will contribute to Viv while this may be useful for the majority of the foundation it can be detrimental for the finer details what you can do to increase your viz compile times and increase optimization is to remove these from viz consideration by selecting the meshes and selecting not a viz contributor in its object properties examples of hammer meshes that can be ignored are tables chairs Furniture fences certain trims and Frames there are multiple tool materials that are used in the computation of viz access them by searching through your material browser the following each all contribute to Viv but have specific purposes no draw is a tool used to construct invisible walls that doesn't block any light or contribute to light map space this will still render the Skybox but not act as a light source for the light environment entity it will also act as a solid surface this with terrain is a perfect example of where no draw can be useful rather than having the terrain be a part of the viz calculations we can use no draw to make viz simpler Skybox is a material that will apply your Sky Box and will be a source of light generated from your light environment entity this is not solid and does not act like a block light in Source 2 outside environments are just one giant room where Skybox is strategically applied you will want to have all the places where the light comes through to be sealed with the Skybox material Skybox can also be useful if you have an interior with Windows where you would like light to come through solid block light is a tool that will block light and contributes to light map space it will also Act act as a solid surface you can use solid block light on top of buildings where the player cannot see the roof you can also use solid block lights on windows and door trims if there is a model that lays over it you can use the visibility hint entity to tell the engine exactly the size of the Clusters that you would like to generate place the entity in your level and drag the boundary box to the desired area use lower resolutions in open areas and higher resolutions in tighter spaces once you compile your map on full compile mode with FZ enabled you will generate AOSS file which can be used to visualize how viz was clustered inside of hammer click on map then load compiled viz data to visualize the viz data once in Hammer you can click on any of the generated clusters each cluster has its own set of wireframe colors to differentiated from the next the selected cluster will turn yellow highlighting all the visible clusters that are within its Trace in a cyan color this means that the player can see up to this much of the world from that area of the map when you have two clusters selected the Rays shown in green visualize the possible sight lines levels that have been built and optimized for viz should be sealed with their clusters and not have any leaks you can see when a map has a viz leak by clusters that are generated outside of the level boundaries these leaks giving glimpses into the void can cause sudden frame spikes I have included an example level that shows all the different viz techniques discussed in this video to download and view for yourself download the V map in the video description I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial on viz optimization please like subscribe and join our Discord for more help to participate in all our community events and to play our games and maps

Channel: Eagle One Development Team

Views: 3,476

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Id: XLT2b0Ej8DM

Length: 11min 35sec (695 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 20 2023