why not just use a empty persistent level then have all your assets in the streaming levels. a empty persistent level has almost not cost. or another way to look at it is a empty level has nothing to render so it shouldnt have any effect on your framerate.
Toggling the visibility on something aka hidden in game shouldnt affect your player controllers or anything like that. it just makes it so the game doesnt render the mesh. the asset is still exists is just cant be seen, think of it like the wind it can affect things but cant be seen directly.
Hi, for level streaming, if i want to remove visibility on the persistant level , so i can stream in a level with many assets, and run it more effeciently, as a special area, as questions for those in the know, and codificaiton of best practice,
1 how much more effecient is making the persistant level not visible, than standard occlusion culling?
2 does making invisible change anythihg like player controllers etc? im assuming unloading persistant is a total no no, but fisibility is fine
3 whats the best way of changing visiblity. Ideally with a screengraab if possible?
Many thanks,
P.s. As a more trivial aside,4 if i have all dynamic lighting in persistant, but some static in streaming, is this going to end up strange? What if i have some objects floating in the persistant, which can dissapear on streaming, if they ahve static lighting inside them will they back shadows i dont want on the fully persistant level?
My main hub persitant level already has about 40 streaming levels off it, so it would be hard to recomfigure into an empty persitant. Plus im thikning maybe a persistnat with core textures and models stops uneeded loading,and loading of the same things maybe,
The main crux of the question (not answered yet) is whats the performance difference between turning off persistnat level visibilty, if its say, as an example 1km square and full of repeat used circa 10-20 static meshes; Compared to say, leaving the level visible but fully blocking line if sight to all of the persistant level assets, ie via occlusion culling? Does the engine treat these as the same?
i wasnt telling you to start over. think of it like this your persistent level is a container a jar for instance. anything you have in the jar is something being rendered. streaming levels in this cases would be an item you can put in the jar or take out at will. regular assets placed in the persistent level would be like items glued to the inside of the jar, they are always there and always rendered. so if you put all your assets into the streaming levels then when the levels aren;t being streamed the assets in the streaming levels aren;t rendered. then all you need to worry about is culling distance or occlusion culling in the streaming level.
bottom line there doesnt need to be anything in your persistent level. nothing in persistent level = nothing needed to toggle vis on. optimization is really game dependent it comes down to what is needed in your particular case (is there a mountain that needs to be seen from all areas? how low poly are your assets, what platform are you targeting). theres no one right way to do things, what works best in your game might not work in mine or even be needed at all.
Does anyone know the static lighting interactions between streaming levels?
If you have a static mesh in streaming evel A, and a light in streaming level B, and a light in the persistsnt level, C,
When i build lighting does static mesh in A get light only from C or also
A?
Is shadow and lighting data owned by the light, which is in turn owned by the level; and are there controls re lighting prioroties. Is it me or do some of the epic doc sets lack fine granular detsils?
Yes there are mountains etc; and i do get the concept of how streaming works; as i said, im after fine granular detail on toggling visibility vrs occlusion culling. Performance differences etc.
Im wanting to keep core assets such as often used modular building staric meshe as it saves loading and unloading if player enters a new area and leaves after 20 secs to a few mins, etc like a shop. The reason for the question is streaming in a large high detail area , with unique assets if the playerventers there, and the value in removing the visibility on the persistant level to aid rendering; while keeping the persistsnts useful meshes still loaded