Weather Effects and Resource Use

[Stoney74]

Gents,

Putting the finishing touches on a map, and just curious as to what type of threshold is realistic for weather effects.  I was planning on two basic layers of cumulous-type clouds that are 2-4 k thick.  Will that be too much for the "everyman" system in AH2?

[Denholm]

I've tried it before, reduced Frame Rates from 100+ players down to 4 FPS. There might be a way of doing it, yet what I tried obviouslly didn't work.

[Dux]

Stoney, it's not the size of the clouds that reduces framerates, it's the quantity.

If you keep in mind that the total number of clouds generated at any one time is 900 or less, you will have no problems. That's right from the Cloudeditor read-me. When you "submit" and "animate" the clouds in the editor, a counter will read out the number of clouds at that moment, with another counter marking the highest number. Use that to determine how many rows/columns to make. Using simple math, you'll realize that a 30 by 30 row/column cloud bank will give you 900 right there, so be careful how you add up multiple banks.

By using fewer but larger clouds you will find that you can cover quite a bit of terrain and still be under budget with the total cloud count.

Don't try to cover the entire terrain with clouds; only cover where you think the major action will be.

Denholm I can't imagine what you must have done to get 4 fps.

[Denholm]

I didn't read the readme and managed to generate about 2,800 clouds on the entire terrain.

With this advice I might take up attempting to generate clouds again.

[Stoney74]

Should help that almost the entire map is water, right?

[Easyscor]

Originally posted by Stoney74
Should help that almost the entire map is water, right?

Make sure you run the water not zero test. Very useful. fps are affected by the visual limits set in the Setup tables and the custom objects.