Animated Props

Frozen Goat

L1: Registered
Feb 18, 2009
21
0
Hey guys,

Been testing my map and I'm having problems with high pings. I'm pretty sure it's because I have animated props such as scouts and heavies doing a few different actions. Is there a way that I can use them and make them only happen on the client side so it does not pull down the server? The server I put my map on I usually get 40 ping or so. I'm up around 200 with my map. I have about 10 scouts and Heavies that are animated.

I'd love to be able to keep them but obviously I can't the way it's currently set up.

Thanks in advance.
 

Firest0rm

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 27, 2009
171
33
i doubt that it is because of animated props, unless you have a massive amount of hugely animated props. i dont think a few animated heavies and scouts would affect lag-related stuff, because there are usually quite a few players with heavy and scout models running around. anyway, stuff like that *shouldnt* affect ping, it should only affect fps. the problem would probably be a lack of optimization. could you maybe post a few screenshots of your map, so that i can see if you have anything else that might cause stuff like that?
 

Frozen Goat

L1: Registered
Feb 18, 2009
21
0
Firest0rm,

Thanks for the great link. I learned a lot from that. I went through my map and changed my sky boxes, added a bunch of no draws and even a few occluders.

I went back in and tested my map. While my FPS improved my ping did not change.

Any other map on this server I'm running 35-40ms on.

I went back to my map and removed my animated prop_dynamics and boom my ping is right where it should be. I did not change anything else except for removing them

I have 12 animated props in the map not counting my teleporters. I have 16 running teleporters in my map.

The map runs perfectly with the teleports but once I add in all the animated props I have issues.

The animated props are in 2 separate areas and in two bunches. I've tried placing occluders in the walls that surround the props but it had no effect.

I know I'm a noob but from what I've done it seems to prove out the animated prop_dynamics are the cause of my high ping.

Please let me know if I'm missing something. Is there a step I need to do to the map to make the props not pull down the server like that? Am I using the wrong type of prop?

I really don't want to pull them from my map and from what others have suggested it sounds like there is a way to make this work.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 

Dravu

L1: Registered
Dec 1, 2009
8
2
I had this same problem in a map I'm working on. Each prop_dynamic that uses an animated model adds around 10kb/sec in information that the server has to send to clients. When I ran it locally, my ping was fine of course, but it said I was recieving around 345kb/sec. When you put that on a real server, it caps you at a certain amount of data, so your ping will shoot up and you'll lag. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any solutions to the problem. If you limit it to around one animated prop, it'll do fine, but anymore and it starts becoming too much.
 

Frozen Goat

L1: Registered
Feb 18, 2009
21
0
I had this same problem in a map I'm working on. Each prop_dynamic that uses an animated model adds around 10kb/sec in information that the server has to send to clients. When I ran it locally, my ping was fine of course, but it said I was recieving around 345kb/sec. When you put that on a real server, it caps you at a certain amount of data, so your ping will shoot up and you'll lag. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any solutions to the problem. If you limit it to around one animated prop, it'll do fine, but anymore and it starts becoming too much.

Ugh....not the reply I wanted but thanks for the information. The props really add a lot to my map. If I can't find a solution I guess I'll have to take the animations off.:(
 

Dravu

L1: Registered
Dec 1, 2009
8
2
Ugh....not the reply I wanted but thanks for the information. The props really add a lot to my map. If I can't find a solution I guess I'll have to take the animations off.:(
Yeah. It was a drag when I realized it. Locally, I didn't have any problems, so I kept developing on it and using those props. It wasn't until I threw it on a server to show someone else that I noticed the issues and looked into it. Maybe someone else will come along and offer a solution. :(
 

Wander

L3: Member
Sep 16, 2010
148
55
I know this topic is quite old, but I couldnt find a more recent topic, and didnt see the point of opening a new one
I found a solution, so I want to post it in case anyone else runs into this, and finds this topic through search

I also ran into this issue (the "in" part in netgraph showed 80kb/s), and only found this out after testing it on a real server (everyone's ping went twice as much as normally)
After looking into what could cause it, I found this topic, which confirmed what I was afraid of, the animating props are evil

Then I remembered I saw these animating props in pl_thundermountain, so had a look at how valve did it there, and the solution is quite easy:
DisableBoneFollowers

Some property that hammer doesnt know (and the valve dev wiki doesnt have it either)

I went to all my animating dynamic props, turned smartedit off, added a property with name DisableBoneFollowers and value 1

The 'in' part of netgraph went from 80kb/s to 5kb/s
 
Last edited:

Mzullos5

L1: Registered
Nov 19, 2009
4
0
I went to all my animating dynamic props, turned smartedit off, added a property with name DisableBoneFollowers and value 1

The 'in' part of netgraph went from 80kb/s to 5kb/s

Thank you so much. This really helped me out.