A few questions

[Cake]

So.. I am making a zombie-mode map.. and I have a few questions:

1] Up to how many polys can I put in it until the map starts lagging? [Just an estimate..]
2] Would bigger polys lag more than smaller ones? I want to put in a simple background, and I am not sure if putting 2 huge gigantic polys would lag the map or something.
3] Zombie maps must be waypointed, right? [Any trick around this.. ] Would it work if I only waypointed Bravo which is usually where the bots are..?
4] How can a make a good bridge...? I've tried making one but they never seem to curve very well..
5] How can I make is so that polyworks uses a different set of scenery. I want to use only the default ones, so do I have to move it or something?
6] Is it likely that the new polys of that Soldat beta version are going to pass into the offical? [I want to use some of them ]
7]How does the light button thing on polyworks work? If I make an enclosed house and I put one outside, will the light get inside? [I'd try it but my map isn't finished.. so sorry..]
8] Any easy ways to add a sense of darkness? [I am satisfied by the 1st floor, but the walls of the 2rd and 3rd are seeming bland..]
9] I need a way to keep the alpha flag in place.. Any ideas? [Using polys.]
10] What poly types can the flag land on?

Uhm... Yeah. I know thats a lot of questions and that I most of them weren't even "questions" but yeah. It would be great if someone could answer some of these... [Yeah, that's a lot of questions...]
So.. Thanks in advance.

[VirtualTT]

1) you can use up to 5000 polygons, however ppl usually start complaining if polygon count is over 500...
2) no, polys as bg isn't good idea since you cant put them behind the player and using semi-transparent polygons causes fps drop
3) visit Bot subforum
4) open some other bridge maps in PW
5) PW always uses all the sceneries that you have in your scenery-gfx folder, list of sceneries used by current map are displayed at the Scenery panel.
6) probably yes
7) don't mess with light tool... it's faster and easier to shade maps manually...
~
9) see Poppin's ctf_Dexterity
10) Normal, all kinds of deadly

[As de Espada]

4 - make it lower curved \___/ , not higher curved /----\
6 - probl yes, but probl not with the same format as it is now, so wait to use them.

[Fryer]

10) Normal, all kinds of deadly

Also all the new poly types.

[Cake]

Thanks for all the help so far.
Just need a few things made a bit clearer...
2] Okay, I'll try to make it a scenery but, is it better for it to be a big scenery that that is covering the entire castle or smaller sceneries that cover each floor/level? Making the big scenery would be easier, but I worry it might lag the map..
4] Um... can anyone suggest some maps with bridges...? I don't remember most of the map names that I've played..  Also, there was a nice guide on how to do it on this tutorial[http://forums.soldat.pl/index.php?topic=29244.0]... Does anyone remember how it went? Last thing... The bridge I am trying to make goes like "_/"so its like half a bridge.

Thanks in advance.

[Fryer]

2 - Making one huge scenery would be worse. Imagine you got two tunnels that need bgs. One is top left the other one is bottom right and the map is huge. Then the scenery would have to be just as huge as the map. Making two separate sceneries would just make them a fraction of the total map size together and save loads of space.
4 - ctf_Lanubya, ctf_Maya2, Airpirates, ctf_B2B, etc... I think Airpirates has the bridge you want, if I got your description right.

[Cake]

Big thanks for the fast reply and help. I was messing around with the bridge and it never worked out well, maybe now I can get it right.. As for scenery, I'll make those at the end.

Big thanks to Fryer, VirtuallTT, and As De Aspada for the help.

[L[0ne]R]

3) It depends on where you want to host your map. If server owner is ok with having waypoints just for zombies - then don't bother waypointing the other team.

4) Check out inf_Outpost rework. I think it has just what you need. I don't recommend using the bridge from original inf_Outpost as it has a number of polybugs.

5) You can only use sceneries in your scenery-gfx folder, you can't divide them into separate sets. However in Polyworks they actually are divided into sections, one of which is called "defaults".
Just scroll down to the end of the list and double-click on "Defaults" and it should take you to the list of default sceneries. I'm not sure if this list is up-to-date though.

You can also install a clean version of Soldat and set Polyworks to use that clean version with just default sceneries.

6) So far new polys are working fine, so you can use them. If something will be changed about them after all - you can always open up the map again and edit them.

7) You need to use light tool in combination with with depth map tool (to the right of light tool). By default Polyworks thinks all polygons are flat. You need to use Depth Map tool to show which polygons are closer and which are farther. Then you can place lights and it will light polygons properly.
Lights can actually be useful and can save a lot of work if you know how to use them properly. Though painting vertices manually is a more reliable way.

8) Add a bunch of dark semi-transparent sceneries and set them to "middle". If you wanna do something more complex - check out inf_SunRise.
I painted shading in Photoshop, saved it as PNG, and then stretched it across the whole map. Because shadows don't need crazy detail, you can make shading scenery very small and then stretch it across the whole map.

I'm not sure if it's a good way to do this, that's why:

2 - Making one huge scenery would be worse. Imagine you got two tunnels that need bgs. One is top left the other one is bottom right and the map is huge. Then the scenery would have to be just as huge as the map. Making two separate sceneries would just make them a fraction of the total map size together and save loads of space.

So what exactly makes it worse? Scenery dimensions in soldat, or image dimensions and filesize? Would it affect fps if you stretch a small scenery across the whole map?

[Cake]

The bridge I had in mind is "half" a bridge. [Starts lower, curves, and ends at an higher elevation.] I'll look into the map bridge suggestions.
Oh, so thats what that default thing was... [Saved me a lot of trouble seeing as I have like 4 different versions of Soldat and I don't know how to set Polyworks to use one..] I'll use that default list then.
I guess I'll just use the "old" polys for now..
Seems too complicated, I'll probably just color the entire thing... I'll play around with depth later maybe.
I plan to play around and set scenery in the end, so I'll try that out.

Big thanks to L[0ne]r, Fryer, VirtualTT, and As De Aspada for all the help! :]

[Cake]

A quick questions..
How do I get rid of that ugly white thing on my scenery..? [Link]
Tried making background and it comes out like that.. I am not very good at editing and stuff..

[VirtualTT]

This happens cause of filter used in PW. It's not a big deal actually since it won't appear in Soldat. However if this happens and this glowing edge occurs on the alpha channel or green mask border you can try filling scenery background below the transparent alpha channel part with some darker colour and settings bg colour of the scenery file to dark colour.

[chutem]

I think you are wrong VTT.

I had that problem before, when saving .png's with Paint.NET, it showed up in PW AND Soldat with a wierd less-than-1-pixel-thick line around the edge.

Thats what it looks like from the screen anyway.

[VirtualTT]

1. Don't use paint.Net
2. As i said before you can try setting bg colour of transparent pixels to some other value / remove it to avoid this. (gimp/photoshop can so this)