Placeables and Environmental Objects

[PhalanxX]

While creating my module, someone advised me to convert all placeables that aren't interactable/objects/transitions into environmental objects instead. This is for a module that's going to be hosted as a server, and I'm told that it's because placeables constantly have to transmit their state to the network which may affect performance.

 

Is this true? Will converting my placeables into environmental objects help optimize performance on a server module?

[Tchos]

I haven't seen anyone say what you're describing, but my experience is limited.

 

A placeable with dynamic collision activated would probably need to constantly transmit its state, but I don't see why a static placeable without dynamic collision would. The baked walkmesh is where it gets all its collision data aside from dynamic ones, as far as I know.

 

It's true that environmental objects have much less overhead than static placeables, though, and the prevailing wisdom is that it's better to make almost everything an environmental object, except for objects that the player is going to interact with (usable items), and objects that should block line of sight. And of course if you make it into an environmental object, you'll have to use a walkmesh cutter to prevent people from walking right through the objects.

 

As an illustration, here's a screenshot I took, showing a baked walkmesh. The clean, simple white- and blue-lined shapes are the objects that I converted to environmental objects, and blocked off with walkmesh cutters. The shapes with the dozens of black polygons in them are static placeables. This says to me that the placeables use a lot more polygons for their walkmesh collision than the environmental+cutter combination do, which means better performance for the environmentals.

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GgSjSawUBEE/UDhn4pis5TI/AAAAAAAADnk/NoNkd9TLZxs/s400/placeables%2Benvironmental%2Bobjects.jpg

 

As usual, I hope others will answer if they have more info.

[PhalanxX]

Yeah that's perfect, I ended up converting most of my things to environmentals and placing the walkmesh cutter. Thanks