Mapmaking guidelines?

[~FB~Quizzly]

Simple question....
Does anyone know about a simple "guideline" for mapmaking?
Which talks about stuff like what causes a smooth and non laggy map?
I know about fires, lights and smoke. Too many moving vehicles and so.
But is there an exact (hmmm) number for these things.
Max .bms filesize?
Amount of objects? Does it matter what kind of objects you maximize?
Does badly lined up/stacked objects affect the map?

And so on and so on...lol...hope you get what Im talking about here.
In general I want maps to behave good even for those players that doesnt have that superconnection some others have ;-)
It would be good to hear some tips from the pros that leaves good maps in here.
Must give some creds to all the mapmakers out there. Ive had loads of good times playing on some of those maps.

And last but not least....credits to DFHQ for being the Nr 1 DF resource out there;-)

Cheers :-)

[Steve]

just a quick note
abjects with few sides are better, round objects have more polygons and therefore workthe gfx cards harder.

items with invisible sections like the metal fences (i dont know if they are in TS), will cause further frame rate loss.

a lot of objects in one area will cause gfx lag, so don't pack a lot of things in close to one specific area of the map.

you could find someone using a slower stytem to check the maps out i guess for their opinion.

most maps tend to be less than 100KB (zipped) if the map is bigger then that then i think it will have enough items to lag some players.

lots of AI in a map will cause bad performance.

i know the lights especially can cause problems.

[~FB~Quizzly]

Thanks for your reply Stevie :-)
Ill browse around and pop in every now and again to see if more people can come with comments.

I have only been making maps for a year or so. And Im hoping that some of the old mapmakers can share what they have come up with thru the years. Saves me from the old trial and error thing ;-)

Cheers again.....

[EL_BASTARDO]

like SB says the less polys the less G-lag...highly textured surfaces will take more processing power than smooth ones too, & the thing with lights is the same with fire effects...they are constantly re-rendering so cause lots of lag if you have many.
over use of moving vehicles, although you can put a fair amount in.

as for badly lined up objects:- take time to get them right....it'll pay off in the long run because players will appreciate the map more & also you will minimise the risk of glitching and glitch deaths...and if you overlap 2 objects try to adjust them so that you don't get graphic glithing where the surface flashes through.....(you may need to step back from the object a bit to see this effect)
try to take into account as many character types as you can unless you are building specifically for CQB or sniper etc. & ffs make a map even sided so that both teams have an equal chance adn there's no advantage to either.

I'll shut up there lol