SC2Mapster

As the title says, will 8000+ doodads in one map cause performance issues?

If you use standard sc2 models, then probably yes. If they are from the wc3 assets then it depends on the rest of your map (triggers, unitcount etc)

You can see for yourself. Run the map, note your fps after 30 or so seconds. Open it up, ctrl+a and delete every doodad, then run it again.

8000 doodads of simple static doodads with no animation? on some low end machines, sure you will loose a few frames.

8000 doodads with omni lights, with animations and sounds playing, yes, yes they will drop a few extra frames.

When terraining for a game I personally like to try and use as few doodads as possable, use the terrain pallet as much as possible to make things look interesting and dynamic before using doodads. Or, if the terrain is made of pure doodads, then get as much bang for your buck and try and not have 100-200 animating doodads in the same place.

So 8000+ doodads will cause some lag on a good amount of machines, so do try and budget where you can if you are looking for the smoothest game-play possible :)

Quote from joecab: Go

8000 doodads of simple static doodads with no animation? on some low end machines, sure you will loose a few frames.

8000 doodads with omni lights, with animations and sounds playing, yes, yes they will drop a few extra frames.

When terraining for a game I personally like to try and use as few doodads as possable, use the terrain pallet as much as possible to make things look interesting and dynamic before using doodads. Or, if the terrain is made of pure doodads, then get as much bang for your buck and try and not have 100-200 animating doodads in the same place.

So 8000+ doodads will cause some lag on a good amount of machines, so do try and budget where you can if you are looking for the smoothest game-play possible :)

Joecab said everything I would've wanted to say. 8000 doodads is basically my upper limit and it is something I'd only get to in bigger maps with multiple zones, like RPG's. You can make a map with 8000 doodads and have it be playable for the majority of your playerbase, but it's relatively exceptional.

try to reduce mapsize, it help A LOT!

egod

It will take a performance toll, but I think it is doable under certain requirements.
It really depends on the rest of your map, which doodads you are using and how many units you are planning to be alive on your map at the same time.

If possible, hide the actors of doodads that are not required to reduce their performance costs. Hidden actors use little to no performance while visible actors, even offscreen ones like structure images in the fog, eat a lot of performance.

As a benchmark, Heroes of the Storm has 3221 doodads placed in their Garden of Terror map.

Wait, does the player NEED to see those 8k doodads at the same time? or are we talking about a map with 8000 doodads with fog of war that occludes about 95% of them? Now i'm curious about the difference...

Also my tip, if you use them to cover shit try making them as big as possible and use variety, not quantity, like instad of making a wall of 100 rocks, make 4 big ones and add some shrubs or a few smaller boulders, some tree here and there and it should give the same effect. Same with things like forest, if your camera is high enough a big tree can cover the same space as 5 small ones and with enough work you can make very pretty forest with just a few of those.

Thanks for all the replies. The terrain is not done, but close to 1/8 done. and as it is right now, it has 836 doodads.

I want to create something that seems like a dense forrest. Might take up the tip with bigger doodads. I just don't want to spend a lot of time creating a terrain which will make the map unplayable.

I've got stones scattered between the trees to make it seem a little more alive than just spamming trees

(I'm making a remake of the old warcraft map "Enfos Team Survival" which means up to 400 units on the map at a time)

Quote from Forge_User_44611484: Go

(I'm making a remake of the old warcraft map "Enfos Team Survival" which means up to 400 units on the map at a time)

omg finally, i am waiting for this since sc2 started

Oh yeah thats totally "big doodads" material, also remember there are other types beside trees, theres foliage, shrubs and plants you can use to liven up the place.

My favorite technic is to put 3-5 trees together with some shrubs or rocks at its base ala wow, in fact look for wow screenshots, they are masters at populating an area with the least amount of polys as possible.

Quote from gundrust: Go

Oh yeah thats totally "big doodads" material

Was gonna post this.

To add to that: if you're 1/8th done with this much trees, that means you've got the bulk done already. Trees tend to be the doodads you use the most of, so the other 7/8ths won't actually be 7/8ths in terms of doodads. Unless you plan on putting 8000 trees in your map, in which case your terrain is bad and you should feel bad.

Quote from Forge_User_44611484: Go

@Demtrod: Go

omg finally, i am waiting for this since sc2 started

Glad you're also a fan :D It's coming along nicely. I've got all the waves done and some heroes, but the heroes and the items will take some time to complete and then there's all the balancing

Quote from gundrust: Go

Oh yeah thats totally "big doodads" material, also remember there are other types beside trees, theres foliage, shrubs and plants you can use to liven up the place.

My favorite technic is to put 3-5 trees together with some shrubs or rocks at its base ala wow, in fact look for wow screenshots, they are masters at populating an area with the least amount of polys as possible.

The reason I'm doing it this way, is that I dont want people to focus on that terrain. It should not be something that draws the attention. Also it functions sort of like a wall which defines the playable area of the map, so having it be 50% open area would not work as intended.

Quote from Mozared: Go

@gundrust: Go

Was gonna post this.

To add to that: if you're 1/8th done with this much trees, that means you've got the bulk done already. Trees tend to be the doodads you use the most of, so the other 7/8ths won't actually be 7/8ths in terms of doodads. Unless you plan on putting 8000 trees in your map, in which case your terrain is bad and you should feel bad.

As stated above, the function of the trees, are to define the playable area of the map. And while there's a lot of tree's in use, they do serve a purpose. And as of right now being that 1/8 of the terrain is done, I'll probably use the same amount of doodads for the same amount of space for the rest of the map.

I might just have to redo it, and scale up the tree's to maximize the space used per doodad :)

Some time ago I was checking every single campaign map to count the number of units and doodads, as well as their overall map size. If Blizzard can keep the performance stable, then using these numbers as reference can't hurt, right?

As far as doodads are concerned in the campaigns, the numbers are all over the place.

They went a bit overboard in Wings of Liberty with missions like "Safe Haven" (3145), "The Moebius Factor" (2918) and ""Haven's Fall" (2892). Overall, though, they seem to try to keep it under 2000 doodads, or 2500 at the very least.

Blizzard seems to have learned their lesson, though, and scaled back on the doodads in Heart of the Swarm. The mission with the most doodads there (The Crucible) only has 2265 doodads in total. Every other mission doesn't even pass the 2000 mark.

Mind you, those are singleplayer offline maps. For online, it should be lower if possible, and most definitely not above 3000 doodads. It's your decision how to design your forest and all, but always remember: Less is more.

One trick I have in mind is to make each tree model bigger (change the scale to 2.0 and copypaste that doodad over and over again). That would mean, in theory, half the doodads for the same amount of space filled with trees.