How much is comfortable to fit into each cell?

[theuseless]

I am new to making my own content, but I have completed a number of tutorials on how to make a mod. I now feel like I have the hang of it and want to take it to the next level.

 

So i have a floorspace that took a week to lay down and fit seamlessly. It is a huge castle with many secret passageways and secret rooms. I have been looking in these forums for hours and googled myself to death but I can't find an answer to my question. How many cells should i split the castle into, and how much should each cell contain? I ask because as it stands now, I am ready to add items, npc's and quests (I'm a tutorial hound and have tried and tested many on small scales).

 

Is there a recommended range for how much is loaded in a single cell? Can I make an open castle that contains all the combined info in one cell for high performance, and release a multiple celled version for low performance comps?

 

As I stated earlier, I am new to modding but I am willing to learn and open to any suggestions please. :thanks:

[Vagrant0]

When working with interior cells, there are generally three things which should be kept in mind when deciding what to split into other cells.

 

1. Length of sight. Interior cells have no LOD objects or meshes. If extremely long halls/rooms are present, one side of the room may no longer be active/visible when the player is near the other. Although you can get around this by having some black interior fog, you're usually best off shortening the room and making any doors off the long dimension of that room loaddoors that lead to other cells. The maximum distance of active area around the player is roughly 8000 units.

 

2. NPC count and activity. For best performance, you shouldn't have any more than 6 or 7 actors per section of an interior. Each section would be roughly everything within 8000 units radius of a major feature of that interior. When you need a higher density and can't separate things by hallways, it's usually best to break that section or group of sections off into another interior cell and setup loaddoors where practical.

 

3. Complexity. Both from a performance and playability standpoint, it's usually best to break large interiors up into sections so that you don't have as much being rendered at once, and so that the player has some chance in finding their way around and being able to use their automap if they get really lost. As most interiors would reflect man-made areas, the most practical solution is often to divide it into areas based on use, ownership, or theme. For instance, with a castle, the main hall and public areas would likely be one cell, the servants quarters would be another cell, the guard barracks another cell, the royal quarters another cell.

 

 

But, for the most part, it's up to your own opinion. Best real advice would be to spend some time playing the mod yourself and see if you have any moments of "maybe I should split things off here". In dungeons, people will often make sure they've cleared out their current cell (and save) before entering through any load doors, so for particularly long dungeons, it's usually best to have those points throughout just so that the player doesn't lose everything due to crash or minor mistake.

[theuseless]

"The maximum distance of active area around the player is roughly 8000 units."

 

"For best performance, you shouldn't have any more than 6 or 7 actors per section of an interior."

 

"In dungeons, people will often make sure they've cleared out their current cell (and save) before entering through any load doors, ... so that the player doesn't lose everything due to crash or minor mistake."

 

 

Wow, thank you so much Vagrant0! These are precisely the answers that I was looking for and such a fast response. Load times don't make too much of a differnce with my comp, but these guidlines are very useful. I do want to use large rooms still, but now I know how to break them up. They are each roughly each 2,000 - 2,500 in distance at the largest, from one wall to the other. I like your idea of black fog tho, I'm gonna use that, along with spider webs and darker lighting to hide visability of hidden doors/chests. I will also release a version with it broken down into cells based on rooms, but for now I'm building it as a whole (I can split it into individual cells later).

 

If there were a way to rate usefulness of comments in here, I would give you a perfect 10 (which is unheard of for me). Thank you again with your informative, quick and easy to understand response :yes:

[Qwaxalot]

Yes, give Vagrant0 kudos, he deserves it