Cosmic Tactical Combat Simulator

Release your maps and discuss them, from alphas to finished releases.
User avatar
illwieckz
Project Head
Posts: 815
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2012 7:22 pm UTC
Location: France
Contact:

Re: Cosmic Tactical Combat Simulator

Post by illwieckz »

That's awesome! And the map itself looks very nice! 😍 Also it's very nice

I'm currently taking a break after the 0.56.2 release but when I'll be back I'll host it on my server! 😀

I was surprised you used CRN for lightmaps, but it looks like they are so high res that they avoid the usual artifacts we can expect from CRN lightmaps and other lossy formats… We may investigate the usage of the -fill q3map2 option meant to workaround jpeg lightmaps, that is expected to be useful with lossy formats in general.

Actually I find this very interesting, CRN reduces VRAM usage but produces artifacts, high res lightmap increases VRAM usage, but if high res lightmap also reduce artifacts, then we may find a sweet spot where CRN lightmaps allow both increased resolution while preventing artifacts and preventing crazy VRAM usage. We cannot remove the computational cost of high res lightmaps though… And the DPK size can be felt. 😁

I love how detailed are the lightmaps. For the cast shadows of grates in front of lights, I have not checked the shader source but I have the feeling they behave as if light subdivision was low (high subdivision size, like the default one), basically, like if the whole neon was a single point. Reducing subdivision size (increasing subdivision) would remove the “all shadows come from one origin point” feeling but also blurry the shadows (which is in fact more realist, when the light comes from a large light like a neon). That's also a matter of taste though.

Now I want to investigate that high res CRN lightmap thing. I'll see if that fits the metro rebuild I'm working on.

What was the approximate compute time for the CTCS lightmaps on your end?

Out of topic, but I see that's (at least) you're third account on the forums. If you need to recover an account I can help you with that.

This comment is licensed under cc ​​by 4 and antecedent. The Crunch tool is awesome!

User avatar
illwieckz
Project Head
Posts: 815
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2012 7:22 pm UTC
Location: France
Contact:

Re: Cosmic Tactical Combat Simulator

Post by illwieckz »

I also wanted to say I like the gloomy atmosphere of it! The sRGB lightmap storage seems to be a great help there to keep this gloomy atmosphere while avoiding color banding in the darkened areas. It's great to see maps starting to leverage that! I was eager to see how it would look once those improvements would be put in expert hands like yours, and that's very nice! That makes me super happy! I'm eager to play it! 😀️

This comment is licensed under cc ​​by 4 and antecedent. The Crunch tool is awesome!

User avatar
illwieckz
Project Head
Posts: 815
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2012 7:22 pm UTC
Location: France
Contact:

Re: Cosmic Tactical Combat Simulator

Post by illwieckz »

My server now hosts the map! That's excellent work! :bsuit:

This comment is licensed under cc ​​by 4 and antecedent. The Crunch tool is awesome!

Masmblr2
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri May 15, 2026 7:51 pm UTC

Re: Cosmic Tactical Combat Simulator

Post by Masmblr2 »

Hey illwieckz, thank you for your reply!

"What was the approximate compute time for the CTCS lightmaps on your end?"

I think it was around 30–40 minutes for all stages on a Ryzen 9 7950X3D with 64 GB RAM running Windows 11.

"Out of topic, but I see that's (at least) your third account on the forums. If you need to recover an account I can help you with that."

Hehe, yes. 😄
I actually tried to contact you through Discord to reset my password. The recovery function on the forum sends me a reset link, but it fails with the message: "You did not provide a password reset token."

So yes, I could definitely use some help with that.

Regarding the CRN lightmaps: I honestly wasn’t thinking too much about the backend side of things. My main idea was simply: “let’s make the lightmaps as small as possible.”

I’m not entirely sure, but it really seems like the sRGB lightmaps look better compared to the old ones. I definitely appreciate the update.

I also want to try recompiling some of the other maps to see if they benefit from these improvements as well. So, great job on those updates and thx for hosting it!

Post Reply