prop_static Fade Distance engine cost

    Hey everyone,

    Very small and weird question, but I haven't seen it being asked anywhere or find something about it: With prop_static, you can specify fade distances. You specify a range for when it's supposed to be visible, and when it'll start to fade to nothing. I always wondered if this incurs a CPU cost of some sorts, as opposed to not specifying it all. If it does, I'd rather try to find a way to avoid using this at all. In the level that I'm working on right now, I could theoretically avoid doing it all, but for some models I could specify fade distances to avoid having to cut up more visleafs. I just wondered if it was worth it trying to not have to specify fade distances at all (with my current idea that doing so results in more CPU processing).

    Any thoughts?

    If I recall correctly, the fading-out part does incur a small CPU cost, but the benefits of having the models no longer rendered far outweighs this small issue.

    If you're still worried about it though, you can set the start fade and end fade settings to the same thing so they instantly disappear instead. However, this is quite jarring if the fade-out is visible (The advantage of having it fade is that if you have to have it fade in the player's view, then it's less noticeable). So be careful with this idea.

    Quote from That50

    1 hour ago, That50'sGuy said: If I recall correctly, the fading-out part does incur a small CPU cost, but the benefits of having the models no longer rendered far outweighs this small issue.

    If you're still worried about it though, you can set the start fade and end fade settings to the same thing so they instantly disappear instead. However, this is quite jarring if the fade-out is visible (The advantage of having it fade is that if you have to have it fade in the player's view, then it's less noticeable). So be careful with this idea.

    Hey, excellent response! Thanks for the suggestions :) should I need to fade, it'll probably be the instant ones for props that are just around a corner that I can't cut off in visleafs.

    The idea is to have very short distance between Start Fade and Fade. The biggest cost is where the prop is in "fading" state so ideally you want to clamp it to short distances if possible.

    Quote from Ringel

    3 hours ago, Ringel said: You only have to set the "End Fade Dist/Pixels" to achieve that. You can leave the "Start Dist/Pixels" at -1.

    Ah yes, I had forgotten about that! Thanks for the reminder!

    Quote from Lizard

    7 hours ago, Lizard said: The idea is to have very short distance between Start Fade and Fade. The biggest cost is where the prop is in "fading" state so ideally you want to clamp it to short distances if possible.

    Ah, I see. So the actual only cost is when you're entering the fading zone? That's interesting. In that case, I might just use Ringel's suggestion (below) to get rid of that particular cost ? thanks for all the great answers people!


    Quote from Ringel

    10 hours ago, Ringel said: You only have to set the "End Fade Dist/Pixels" to achieve that. You can leave the "Start Dist/Pixels" at -1.

    Quote from JorisCeoen

    2 hours ago, JorisCeoen said: Ah, I see. So the actual only cost is when you're entering the fading zone?

    Exactly, once prop enters fading state his cost is the highest.

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