Portal layout on a map

[Sl0w]

I'm planning to make a map loader for a game. So far I haven't got much experience with distribution of sectors/portals and I need a little help deciding.
The maps my game will use will be relatively big, more or less tropical environment, some areas will be very densely populated by different kinds of meshes including moving ones, while most of the maps will be scarcely populated. The maps will also feature terrain through which you cannot see(mountains, big hills).

3 things come to mind:
- use only one sector for everything(wondering about performance),
- use cuboids with portals inbetwen them,
- completely custom distribution(during map construction someone would also place the portals/sectors).

Would the difference in performance be significant in the latter 2 cases?

[jorrit]

I'm planning to make a map loader for a game. So far I haven't got much experience with distribution of sectors/portals and I need a little help deciding.
The maps my game will use will be relatively big, more or less tropical environment, some areas will be very densely populated by different kinds of meshes including moving ones, while most of the maps will be scarcely populated. The maps will also feature terrain through which you cannot see(mountains, big hills).

3 things come to mind:
- use only one sector for everything(wondering about performance),
- use cuboids with portals inbetwen them,
- completely custom distribution(during map construction someone would also place the portals/sectors).

Would the difference in performance be significant in the latter 2 cases?

Keep in mind that portals really only help performance when you can keep them small. Using cuboids is not likely to guarantee that as the portal may just as well be on an open stretch of land. The third solution would be most complicated to do but it is also the one that can give you most performance if you do it well.

Greetings,

[Sl0w]

How small is small:)?The portals(if I used cuboids) would be quite big and wouldn't get lots smaller if they were custom.

[jorrit]

How small is small:)?The portals(if I used cuboids) would be quite big and wouldn't get lots smaller if they were custom.

If you use custom portals then you can use (for example) small corridors like in PlaneShift. I don't know if you say PlaneShift but they always use corridor like connection levels to connect bigger levels. i.e. a path in a forest, a corridor in a temple, ...

Otherwise using portals has no purpose.

Greetings,