Marketplace Optimisation

[Arkaash]

Here's the initial file for this process. It contains the new cell with the marketplace copied in, gates between this cell and the rest of the city and optimisation in the main city to remove all the detail that used to be in this area.

http://puu.sh/gie9s/ae8bd6324c.rar

[MorganRobinson]

we really need to rethink this area it doesnt look very merchanty

[Arkaash]

Yeah, it's really empty at the minute. But now it's in its own cell we can go all Oskutin on that shit.

[Doublefelix]

What about the surrounding external areas? Is performance improved there? Marketplace is one of the areas Im going to tackle eventually, so leave buildings to me.

[Arkaash]

Assuming you mean the lag in the main world cell around the marketplace then yes, that's significantly reduced - the only areas that lag now are around the construction wall and the second island docks.

And yeah, I've kinda assumed you'll make some models for the gates, as I put some really crappy ones in :D

[Yurtex]

I have 2 plans on how to optimise market. But before what needs to be done in both of them: 1.This are needs remodelling, before we start scarpping stuff or makeing major changes.

2. Player shouldn't be able to stand on top of that hill, the whole hill top shoud become a single building.

3.City walls should be devided into the smaller pieces, as for now they get lit by to many lights, it cousese framedrops, same goes for the huge rocks in the base of the island, they need to be replaced by smaller ones.

Plan A : Separete cell. Move gate, remove ugly tree. Add huge ass wall here:

Glorious Plan B: Fuck market cell. Lets just move second island furhter so it won't be loaded as adjacent cell when player on the other island. I get hugest frame drops(like 30frame!), when I look from second one to the main.

Remove unnesesary lights. My poor attempt here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zohxm0of4y02fww/market_opt.7z?dl=0 Uncheck Luftmarketplace.esp and Y_jailtower.esp added some occluders removed city walls.(just for testing)

[Arkaash]

What's wrong with the tree :(

[Doublefelix]

In Glorious Plan B do you mean "adjacent" (as in, the neighboring cell)? And if second island will be further away, then detail from first one will not have to load, fixing some memory cluttering? I know of the lag you mention, I get it too, a huge drop in fps. Only I dont know if moving the island one cell further will help . I'm simply not sure how much distance would be needed for that to work (some players have UGridsToLoad=5, some 7, some crazy bastards even 9 and beyond). Though I'm not expert at this so I don't know if my understanding is correct.

I do agree that plan B is glorious, personally being against making separate worldspace for a small part of the city. To me that loading screen breaks the flow of traversing thorugh the city. Imagine having the market plaza and Wind district of Whiterun together being in a different worldspace while rest of the Plains and Cloud districts (which I can't get to often enough according to fucking Nazeem) left in Skyrim worldspace. Kinda weird right? It just makes more sense to me to have at least a sizeable chunk of it in separate worldscape. Like entirety of first island, so instead of 4 points of entrance you only need 2. Only downside I see is I'm not sure if that will help with performance problem, or simply contain it within the walls of first island worldscape.

But anyways, I like your suggestions Yurtex and agree with them. Nicely presented and screenies are very informative.

[Yurtex]

"What's wrong with the tree :(" I HATE IT. (it just looks better without, less whiterunny and you can see my awesome gallows better ;) also cleaner more suited for trade, we can clutter it with objects that are being sold and like that.)

"(some players have UGridsToLoad=5, some 7, some crazy bastards even 9 and beyond)" damn you right, The problem with walls that we have to much objects that needs to be seen while looking from inside out. And the fact that you can climb on arkngzul tower. and the benefit of a separate cell is not that much so far, yes you'll be able to add more stuff to the market, but yet its not clear how much. Optimization is not that much as I achieved similar results without cutting it out.

I think we should postpone new cell until, central hill and construction wall is redone. PS: felix now I won't be modelling anything related to the architecture, so feel free to change any thing with out concern overlapping my work.

[Arkaash]

So I don't have very long to reply to this so I'm going to be really blunt.

Idea 2 won't work at all - we'd have to move the island a ridiculous amount for it to help at all.

There are several reasons we've decided to put the marketplace into a separate cell in the way that I have in this file. First, the pros: -Reduces, and effectively eliminates, all lag in the marketplace area and on the remainder of the first island when looking towards that area (are you saying, Yurtex, that this isn't the case for you?) -Creates a buffer zone between the first island docks (which will be expanded) and the rest of the city that can be filled with occluder planes and the like to ensure none of the city is rendered from the docks and vice versa. -The current gate setup ensures that almost no external parts of the world can be seen from the marketplace world cell, ensuring a minimal amount of work is required for the transition. Placing the entire first island into its own cell would mean we'd have to recreate most of the surrounding landscape anyway. -We can develop the interior of the marketplace cell in any way we want (even removing the tree, if we decide to) to make it feel more mercantile and bustling, without having to worry about lag. -We have the freedom to redesign the Solrin's Tower area (outside the world cell) to look much more detailed and interesting with the only condition being that it cannot overlook into the marketplace area. -We have more freedom to add detail to the remainder of the first island since the overall lag of the area is reduced. -Can create separate map markers for the marketplace and the rest of the city, allowing players to fast travel to the city entrance and to the marketplace, near the player home and all the useful faculties like blacksmithing, making them more likely to use Luftahraan as a convenient base for crafting.

Cons: -Players are required to go through a loading cell to access a portion of the city (although not to travel to the second island. -Requires some work to make the gates to and from the marketplace look nicer, as well as ensuring all gaps into the marketplace from the outside are filled up, and vice versa. -From higher up Arkngzul it is possible to see 'out' of the marketplace area, but the player can only get up there once at the end of the main quest, at which point the entire city will be in its own cell to facilitate the fact that it's on fire and being destroyed.

I've probably missed a couple of things, but those were the points Wheeze and I discussed when we decided to do this. I'm not against alternative solutions, but they need to a) work better than that and b) not take an immense amount of effort/city redesigning to implement.

[Yurtex]

Well I'm not against separate cell, just want it to be as smooth transition as possible. My concern is second island. Lags caused by the main island are still present.