Print

[HE-SARRENE]

Update on Occluders:
    This is a week or two late in response, however: We were finally able to identify what is and is not working. There are two areas that are currently not working as was pointed out, though it took a bit to dig in and find out exactly what.

A clear reproduction was done and documentation, and yes this is an issue on both client and the blade.
1) What is occluding is not being rendered or recorded properly
2) Culling is not occurring in very specific situations.

Though the issue was reported to the boss man, we did continue to track down the problem and where it was happening.

    Though this problem will not effect most peoples development right now, it is something that we do want to get fixed and in as soon as possible. Please remember we are a small team, so a fix will probably not be out in the next week. But rest assured this does not effect your development itself, and it will be fixed and updated.

Thank you COOLTYCHO for reporting this and all the information you were able to provide. Though our initial tests showed it was working, it helped spur us to keep testing all possible scenarios. Occlusion culling should work in all instances, not just some.

Sorry that this took so long, and thank you for reporting it and your patience

[nocake]

Thank you, one question: Will this be fixed in an engine milestone update that follows the status page you have created or a hot fix?

You are correct this is not a effecting our ability to develop directly but it is a major concern and has hindered progress in world building.

This summer was dedicated to building out a game ready area using seamless 2.0.
It was an absolute nightmare fighting through figuring out what was wrong.

We cant build areas out or even check for finishing touches with the areas stitched because everything is being rendered. It seems to be very sporadic in how it was working and the reporting definitely seems to be completely broken.

Waiting for the fix! Exciting news.

[HE-SARRENE]

For the question posed about this and the fix is: Yes, it is included in the roadmap under "HeroBlade 2 Update". If it is found that there are immediate and negative impacts it will come in as a hotfix instead. We will update if there are any changes to this current plan of action.

The recently reported problem with World building itself have been investigated and no evidence suggests that there is a problem with the engine in this area, since no other developers are experiencing this problem with HeroEngine. The project experiencing these issues is currently being looked at by our support team and we are helping to find solutions to the various difficulties.

[nocake]

"The recently reported problem with World building itself have been investigated and no evidence suggests that there is a problem with the engine in this area"

I cant properly build seamless 2.0 areas with out occlusion. My FPS just sits at 20 and then jumps when I move around.

If I disable models from being rendered its perfectly fine 140 FPS.

I would say that is broken. I know I am probably the only one who is actually building a world at the moment and worrying about seamless 2.0. I even wrote a guide you can find on the forums here.

This is game engine breaking if you are trying to build out your world which is pretty crucial if you ask me.....
I had brought this issue up some time ago when you first started as well. You even logged in and looked at my world. I hadnt heard a thing since and then I come to revisit it and I find the real issue is HE was broken all along.

This is extremely frustrating as I told you guys there was something wrong a long time ago and it was basically ignored. Of course it was done in Skype so there is no history.

WTB a community that understand collaboration and not using some outdated chat client that spams devices like SKYPE.

[HE-SARRENE]

I am sorry you are having such issues. I can go back into your world and try again, but I will need some help since the character does not work for me.

Regarding other worlds, you are not the only one currently using seamless 2. I know of several teams that have from only about 15-20 stitched together to some with well over 100 to form their world. Most of these have areas fully built out.

If you want to send me a PM of the area name and where you see the most issues at, I will drop what I am doing and hop in right away and see if I can help any further, or have some ideas on what is causing the issue for you.

[ToY-Krun]

This topic has been beat so much lately lol... so.. with no offense intended, I just feel the air needs cleaned a bit

I cant properly build seamless 2.0 areas with out occlusion. My FPS just sits at 20 and then jumps when I move around.

At least 3 of the more openly known projects are using almost purely seamless 2.0 worlds, and are actively being built right now.  Having said that, i'll only speak for our own, Anvil of Honor:

over 40 areas currently using seamless 2.0, 24 of which are currently being populated/decorated for a single region.
Current functionality includes (but not limited to) proxy characters (visibility of characters in adjacent areas) as well as the ability for npcs to travel from area to area using seamless 2.0.
This has been achieved using mostly "out of the box" seamless 2.0 code and functionality.

If there are issues with using seamless 2.0 there are several around who might be able to offer pointers with this.

If I disable models from being rendered its perfectly fine 140 FPS.

20 is the current "norm" for our world in areas which are very very densely populated (im talking 1.3mil primitives plus) once occlusion is fixed, that will go back up to roughly 75 to 80 as it was before (as occlusion of course cuts down that number to what you "should" be able to see at any given time.   Frustrum Occlusion is currently working (meaning only objects within your cameras view are rendered).  What isnt working fully at the moment is Occlusion culling where your "occluder" models arent preventing whats behind them from being rendered.
Again, its been mentioned so much lately that this is known about and may be addressed in the next update.
If there is something you can't accomplish due to this, there are many other aspects of a game to work on until the issue is fixed.  I'm still building/placing models that are Occluders, and I can see what they "should" occlude, and when the occlusion is fixed, it should all work just fine.  if not i'll make tweaks/adjustments as needed.

I know I am probably the only one who is actually building a world at the moment and worrying about seamless 2.0. I even wrote a guide you can find on the forums here

I only know of but a couple that are not using seamless 2.0 and actively working on their projects.
Seamless 2.0 is one of the most used and most appealing features of the Hero Engine.

I had brought this issue up some time ago when you first started as well. You even logged in and looked at my world. I hadnt heard a thing since and then I come to revisit it and I find the real issue is HE was broken all along.

In Sarrene's defense (though she can defend herself quite well all by herself ! *duck*)  I am with HE support as well and due to the error spam from character errors, missing textures, missing files, Audio errors,  and debug messages it was very difficult to determine what was taking place.  With so many errors, there are a number of problems you're going to run into while trying to debug / design your world.  Not the least of which, certain error types, once thrown, will cause the engine to stop trying to do certain things, so that it prevents a crash (when possible). 

I'm sure you're frustrated, however, the only portion of your current frustration that falls on HE is that yes, occlusion isnt functioning as it should.  We are glad that work on the occlusion system went in to this last update as the old system was far outdated, and to see it being upgraded is a huge plus for all of us.  Yes, something happened in the upgrade that wasnt expected, but when you're replacing an entire system....  yeah that can happen right?

This is extremely frustrating as I told you guys there was something wrong a long time ago and it was basically ignored

No, this issue only arose with the most recent update(I can prove this by our statistics, and am still testing to see exactly what all is affected and needs addressed), and as soon as it was discovered it was posted that it was being looked at. 
I'm not sure what else anyone can tell you.  I can tell you that far worse problems have come up over the years and then, as now, we waited for the next update for the fix.

WTB a community that understand collaboration and not using some outdated chat client that spams devices like SKYPE.

Teams are collaborating... and many choose skype... just to clarify, while open community support is nice, it is not a requirement since most teams are working on their own projects, and while they may from time to time offer advice/help on the forums/social media, many choose to focus on the design/obstacles of their own game design.  Not many people here are looking for something to do, but rather wishing they had less
I think everyone knows by now that for some reason you do not like Skype.  I on the other hand (forgive my bluntness but to show that there are others as opinionated about their choice of programs as you are) i'd rather jump into a tank of pirhana as use Discord   Its what people are used to... some are used to skype and it suits their needs.

Keep in mind, Skype/Discord or any other social media do not replace the forums here for questions/help/news.
Many things may be discussed in these other venues but they are not the proper channels for support.
(though you may get a faster answer there some times, its best even then to use the forums so that the question/answer/discussion is available for future use by others).

I believe every post you have made on the forums has always been addressed, and mine likewise.

Insulting the community at large is not helpful or warranted.  Especially to someone seeking assistance from said community 

[nocake]

beat so much lately? We had to beat it to get a response and a fix. It was stated that this was part of the update and it wasnt discovered until we raised it, then it was discovered that it was even deeper than first thought. Sorry we had to beat a problem to a conclusion out of you.

Sure you can still build your world but you are building an MMO world blindly in regards to performance and that is not acceptable.

If you had come out from the start and said "This is broken in Blade and the player client and will be fixed upon the next milestone update" I would have let it rest. Instead, despite solid evidence in the first post we were questioned about it and told it was only the blade client. Then it is discovered it was bigger than originally thought? I guess sorry for doing debugging for you?

No offense Krun but you have been no help to this specific situation on these forums.

I fully recognize what is at stake with this engine and my game.

I have built this MMO completely open and honest on these forums. Look through my history.
I wont sit back and watch poor community support happen. We all understand you are a small company but you should really be working with us more often.

Like I said I had Sarrene log into my world and see the problem first hand 10 months ago. I even made a video of it to show her before she logged in which gives me a perfect time stamp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeYknDpiuFQ

You state there are other games creating worlds with seamless 2.0, sure. You can easily work with the system to do that how ever you cant analyze scenes and know how much occlusion you will truly have in areas until this is fixed. I am building an FPS game where that is absolutely crucial.
You telling me that is not crucial in an MMO at this time is a laughing joke.

Let me put it this way!

"Hey guys,

I am building my world and I am really concerned about the frame rate I will have since my MMO will have a seamless world.

How do I go about checking the occlusion and performance through out areas?
 
Thanks"

"You cant right now"



I still find it extremely interesting that it is continuously talked about how this is a small company yet we have only seen 2 posts from the CEO and the only person on the forums is the COO and a community manager who is at best low level support found in the wiki which really needs to be updated.
I have tried contacting Alex multiple times now and still received nothing.
Emailing you guys does nothing so I have stuck to only posting on the forums to keep this open and transparent.
I am fully aware of what that means in regards to my game and relations with the engine but this is a passion project. I wont have it shrouded in secrecy and filth like repop.

That being said I also fully understand the TOS and will be designing my game to take into consideration the server costs. My money gig is owning a hosting company in Silicon Valley. I am fully aware of what this engine offers and what I am receiving. I really wish Alex would contact me.

I am getting my game to an MVP to present on the forums and that is my only goal at the moment which is being hindered by this problem and the Fx problem. Which if you have noted I have not brought up the FX problem since it was explained in a thorough enough manner.

In regards to other games being built, I dont see any of them releasing a thing or even bringing up the occlusion problem which leads me to think they are no where near that yet.

Please stop insulting me with damage control and just be honest.

This is a problem you were not aware of and we had to "beat" it out of you to get a resolution which we still wont know when that is because there is no date on the milestone update.

[nocake]

I am sorry you are having such issues. I can go back into your world and try again, but I will need some help since the character does not work for me.

Regarding other worlds, you are not the only one currently using seamless 2. I know of several teams that have from only about 15-20 stitched together to some with well over 100 to form their world. Most of these have areas fully built out.

If you want to send me a PM of the area name and where you see the most issues at, I will drop what I am doing and hop in right away and see if I can help any further, or have some ideas on what is causing the issue for you.

There is no reason to log in since we know the problem is occlusion. I have since nuked the world anyways and waiting for your update.

Like I said you can build out areas just fine but holy hell does it hound your PC and good luck trying to figure out performance with out occlusion.

The only thing needed is for you guys to be open and honest. Listen to us when we have a problem. It took too long and too many posts to finally get an answer about a major issue and you are both still trying to down play it like it is really not that big because you can do other things....... You even said yourself in the posts "sorry this comes late".

I am just finally glad this has been resolved. One final last question turned into way more than it needed to be.

[HE-SARRENE]

Good evening,
I understand your frustrations, however, I think if you could take a deep breath, I hope you can realize that we are and have been trying to help.

I want to clarify a few things. Though initial testing did not prove that it was NOT working it also did not prove it WAS working. So, we did keep testing especially with the help COOLTYCHO did by posting up what he found.

I guess sorry for doing debugging for you?

If you did any "debugging" you did not post those results here, nor had we received any emails or PM from you regarding the debugging logs. If you had please resend them again. That information could be helpful to expediate the solution. 

If you had come out from the start and said "This is broken in Blade and the player client and will be fixed upon the next milestone update" I would have let it rest.

I could not come out and state it was broken right off the bat without knowing what exactly was broken with it. Since part is working and part is not. It should be culling everything.

As soon as we knew that part was not working correctly we did post that up. Then I updated with more information as soon as we found out the last bit of information we needed.

However, since it was culling some things in some situations, and other things it was not, we had to do thorough testing and debugging to find out where and when it was not working, and document each aspect. If we want this fixed we need to find out what exactly is NOT working and what exactly IS working. Then we can trace down where the problem is with the new system.

If we want to fix it correctly and not do just a simple hack patch, I prefer doing good testing and documentation so we do not break anything else.

No offense Krun but you have been no help to this specific situation on these forums.

He was one of the key people in helping me test so we could find the same areas on different servers where the problems were. He took time out of his own game several days for a few weeks to help track this down. Though you may not have seen the work in the backend, please do be rest assured he helped a lot.

then it was discovered that it was even deeper than first thought.

I could have just posted that "its broken, we will fix it" but instead I wanted to go a bit more into the problem for everyone. I presumed that people would want to know it did go deeper than we first thought.

The only thing needed is for you guys to be open and honest. Listen to us when we have a problem. It took too long and too many posts to finally get an answer about a major issue and you are both still trying to down play it like it is really not that big because you can do other things

The same day the first post was posted, it was stated we were looking into it right away. However, as mentioned above, we had to find out exactly where it was working correctly and where it was not so we could track down the actual issue. I consider this listening to what our clients say. I do not say I am looking into something if I am not. I do not consider same day or next day response as "too long".

Again when it was discovered that there was an issue, or even a possible issue we dug in deeper to find out why some cases it works and others it does not.

Emailing you guys does nothing so I have stuck to only posting on the forums to keep this open and transparent.

I have not received any email personally nor through support regarding this or any other issues. If you sent us emails either at sarrene or support@heroengine.com please resend them so we can put attention to them.

Like I said I had Sarrene log into my world and see the problem first hand 10 months ago.

That issue was related to something completely different. Going through the logs I see the same issues I pointed out regarding that issue ten months ago, which are still present. If you want to post up some of the errors from your error and script log in another thread, I am positive someone will be willing to help sort through those.

There is no reason to log in since we know the problem is occlusion. I have since nuked the world anyways and waiting for your update.

Ive logged in several times over the last three weeks trying to find what is working and what is not across multiple servers. I do not see any difference in your areas until the last time i logged in. I logged in this evening around around 6pm est.

Other than one that was not seamlessly linked is now empty, and one test A/B that was linked with some trees. Even in the areas where you have linked and a multitude of single and tiled assets, I am still getting on my old 7 year old computer 125-140 fps. I am not finding any area that is 20 fps or lower, even the ones you have linked up with speedtrees, bushes etc.

I do see the same stutter though from assets not found and trying to render. Perhaps try clearing these up.

Now, I have not been able to run around in your world as the character camera and animations seem to be configured not quite right. I would look at the camera scripts you have attached to the character, and look at the animation errors. If you like we can try to help debug those and what the possible fixes could be.

We have always answered any problems you had and tried to help, we will continue to do so as long as it stays friendly on all sides.

Thank you

[cysis145]

I joined Sarrene, Jon, Herb and Kelly in the investigation of your project, we have spent several days looking into it. Frankly blaming your projects inability to function due to lack of Occlusion when you have 100's of errors/missing files is incredibly arrogant. Everyone here wants to help, but we're not going to fix all your bugs, there's simply too many, and you shouldn't start blaming the engine when the problem resides entirely within your project.

You need to start working through your bugs one by one. It's going to take a while but thats game development for you. If you get stuck simply ask, someone will help you out. The Community is more than happy to assist you in correcting your issues but are not going to fix the errors for you. If you continue having issues once all the errors are cleared then we'll take another look.

[nocake]

I joined Sarrene, Jon, Herb and Kelly in the investigation of your project, we have spent several days looking into it. Frankly blaming your projects inability to function due to lack of Occlusion when you have 100's of errors/missing files is incredibly arrogant. Everyone here wants to help, but we're not going to fix all your bugs, there's simply too many, and you shouldn't start blaming the engine when the problem resides entirely within your project.

You need to start working through your bugs one by one. It's going to take a while but thats game development for you. If you get stuck simply ask, someone will help you out. The Community is more than happy to assist you in correcting your issues but are not going to fix the errors for you. If you continue having issues once all the errors are cleared then we'll take another look.

The arrogance of this post now. Please stop.

100's erorrs and missing files. We nuked the area, too bad when you nuke the area the only way to properly delete the assets with out going into multiple area files is to delete the assets one by one out of the asset window. If you look WAAAYYY BACK i made a request to update this to allow for selecting multiple lines for deleting assets out of the asset browsers in Blade. That is an incredible simple thing to update.

I am fully aware of what I need to do to get my game to game ready.
What you guys need to do is accept that you have broken occlusion and that is a big consideration for performance when creating an FPS game.

I am still sitting here pointing to occlusion being broken and being told I shouldn't worry about it. Insanity.


As stated before I could disable rendering models and the FPS issue was fine. I didnt turn off characters or heightmap. It was 100% occlusion. This wasnt a load problem or anything. Just a simple you sat there looked at a wall and it occluded nothing on the other side. Turn models off and frame rate was fine.

[nocake]

Correct me if I am wrong but will occlusion lower my primitive count?

Wiki:
"Polygons (Polys) or Primitives This is the key number in relation to framerate. Each asset is built around a mesh of triangles (Polys) which are referred to as primitives. They are called primitives because they are the basic building block of the 3D world. Everything is done against primitives (textures, glow effects, shader effects, etc.). When you look at the number of primitives being rendered in a View, that is the single most important factor affecting FPS. Buckets and HeroMaterials are applied to primitives. Controlling this one number impacts both the CPU and GPU. IF there was one thing to reduce to improve FPS, it would be the number of primitives in view at any one time."

I am telling you I have an FPS issue, you are telling me the occlusion is broken but only partially despite it seemingly not working at all especially in the blade statistics view, now I am being told that its other things and this isnt an issue when creating my world?

http://wiki.heroengine.com/wiki/Controlling_Frame_Rate_(FPS)

[FI-ScottZ]

If I may be blunt, you're coming off as quite a bit of a jerk right now.  They have already acknowledged occlusion has problems and are doing what they can to fix it. I don't know what the hell more you want.  Please stop venting your spleen and fix your errors.  And maybe try to have some patience.

[ToY-Krun]

no one is saying occlusion is working perfectly right now.

Culling is broken, which is only half of the occlusion process.

Yes, this will result in higher primitive counts from the Characters point of view.

World building is done in Camera mode where there is no, none, nil occlusion taking place normally
as you're looking from top -> down.

During world building the counts are higher due to this so its something we deal with as world builders.
Thus it takes a stronger computer for Dev work than it does for say the player client.

This is why we have stated that it "shouldn't" affect world building...
The errors were pointed out only to explain to you that those will affect fps more so than primitives as any text
coming through the console/chat panel causes jerking/lag/stuttering to occur.

It takes alot of Draw calls to reduce fps to 20 or below.. 

To clear an area , if you need to completely clear it, -areadel <areaID> or name is the easiest way to do so, then simply create a new area of the same name and re add it to your seamless layout.

You can also right click on the top item of the assets panel "Assets" and choose "select all instances" then hit the delete key.

Then right click again, and choose, remove unused assets.
clean area.


No one is singling you out.  CooltyCho brought the issue to bear, and its being worked on, however, it , again, "should not" affect your ability to design or build your world given that it can be expected to be repaired as soon as possible.  If you would like to see for yourself how that it does in fact work reasonably as far as world building, you are more than welcome to enter as a guest into Anvil of Honor's world and see how 1.5million primitives still have a fps of 20 and cause no issues as far as building goes.

You "CAN" trust your occluders, unless you arent sure if they're created right.
IF they cover what is supposed to be occluded, then they will.  We just have to wait for the fix.

The point to all of this discussion has revolved around you stating that you can "do nothing" because of this issue, that "should not" be the case, i'll put it that way.

And with that, i'm done with this discussion unless it becomes reasonable.

[nocake]

If I may be blunt, you're coming off as quite a bit of a jerk right now.  They have already acknowledged occlusion has problems and are doing what they can to fix it. I don't know what the hell more you want.  Please stop venting your spleen and fix your errors.  And maybe try to have some patience.

Hey Scott,

I understand that. They did acknowledge it but it stated that it still worked else where but all testing showed that is was not.
My "errors" are not the problem as I stated before this was strictly an issue with the amount of models being rendered.
I have plenty of patience, see the FX problem which was clearly and correctly handled.
I was trying to reach a conclusive answer with this problem that we clearly did not have yet.
I thank everyone for working on this problem but there are issues that need to be addressed about how this was handled.

And Welcome cysis145 to the team, I guess we will be seeing you post more now other than your personal ads?