Ziemanskye on 17/6/2009 at 18:19

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The smarter (than me) people amongst you have probably worked this out already, but I think I finally know what the Render/UnderlayObject Property does.

My initial - and quickly dashed - hopes were that it could be used to force things to render even outside of their own zone, so that you could create a skyline with it. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be quite how it works.

Not quite, anyway.

A few experiments later, and it seems that if you can see the *zone* containing the object this property is "True" for, then the object will be rendered. Normally you'd have to be able to see both the zone and the object (in terms of engine visibility, obviously - the point of this is to let the player see things when the engine normally wouldn't let them)

Which is cool, but it does mean you have to be a bit more careful about which zones can see each other.

Thought I ought to share, now that I'm trying to work out how to put this to good use :thumb:

Ziemanskye on 18/6/2009 at 18:05

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A more visual explanation then.

The set up here is very simple - a long L shaped corridor, with invisible walls so that you can see from one leg into the other. A single portal seperates the two areas (shown in the pictures as the narrow white box). At one end of the corridor there is a player start, and at the other is a staticmesh.

In this first picture, the static mesh does not have the Render/UnderlayObject Property (or it's set to false - I don't know if the game will accept changing it in game with a script or not)
(http://img257.imageshack.us/i/underlayobjectfalse.jpg/) http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/2892/underlayobjectfalse.th.jpg

In this second picture, the mesh has the property, and it's set to True.
(http://img257.imageshack.us/i/underlayobjecttrue.jpg/) http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/1963/underlayobjecttrue.th.jpg

It's quite clear that the contrast here shows that when an object has the property Render/UnderlayObject=True the staticmesh is visible even when the usual visibility rules would say that it shouldn't be.

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Now, if you have two portals in one of the legs, things get a little more complicated.

When the first portal doesn't overlap the second, you can't see anything in the bit with the staticmesh no matter how the property is set.

(http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=underlayobjecttrue2port.jpg) http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/2984/underlayobjecttrue2port.th.jpg

If UnderlayObject=False (or isn't set) and the portals overlap but the staticmesh isn't visible through the combination of both portals, then you can't see it.
(http://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=underlayobjectfalse2por.jpg) http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/1774/underlayobjectfalse2por.th.jpg

Still with the property being false, but now you can see the staticmesh through the overlapping portals. (http://img257.imageshack.us/i/underlayobjectfalse2porg.jpg/) http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/8115/underlayobjectfalse2porg.th.jpg

Finally, with the UnderlayObject=True property, the staticmesh is visible even when it can't be seen through the overlapping portion of the two portals.
(http://img329.imageshack.us/my.php?image=underlayobjecttrue2port.jpg) http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/2984/underlayobjecttrue2port.th.jpg

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My conclusion therefore is that if you can see the zone an object with this property is in, then the object gets rendered. If you can't see the zone, then you can't see the object.

As I said before, this lets you break the usual rule of needing to see the zone and the object at the same time.

Beleg Cúthalion on 19/6/2009 at 13:06

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I got a couple of blinking spires in my map which can be fixed with it. Thanks for that. :thumb: