Overview 

Sectors are large chunks of static geometry that are not configurable, unlike basic static props, which in turn can be baked and assigned to a specific sector. Sectors cannot be changed or moved but they have collision. Used to improve performance.

The idea is that the level is divided into large chunks – sectors (subway station and surface as an example). Sectors are working this way: when you are inside "Sector 1" (for example), everything in this sector is loaded. Whenever you see portals – adjacent sector and everything inside is uploaded as well. If your camera can't see any other portal of adjacent sectors, this means that every other sector is not loaded. Whenever you are outside of the sector, the only way to "download" it is through the portals. The portals are planes that are added between two sectors (for example, doors and windows).

Rules

General:

• Each sector needs to be connected in some way (e.g. door frames are split in the middle, one half is Sector #1, the other is Sector #2).
• You must have an "outdoor" sector normally used with open worlds. Also, it is used for connections (bottlenecks) between inner sectors and the outdoor.

Sector:

• Needs to have at least one lightmap assigned to it.
• Needs to have at least one mesh inside of it.

Lightmap:

• Needs to be assigned to a sector. If not, delete it.

Portal:

• Needs to be at the intersection between sectors! (E.g. doors, windows).
• Can't be larger than the camera view.
• Don't use more than six vertices when creating it.

Placement and Setup

Create simple sector meshes using 3D software (Maya/Max/Blender/etc.) or in Exodus SDK directly with coordinates from your level and pivot in 0.0.0.

3D software:

1. In the map (level) folder, create a folder called "source" and you should export the files there (e.g.  .../content/maps/m3/01_dead_moscow/source).
2. Create sectors, remembering that they must be connected in some way (e.g. Room_1 and Room_2).
3. Create meshes of portals: a single-sided plane. The portal must be located between two sectors.
4. Export each sector individually, with a proper name. The format should be .DAE, don't forget to have UVs (even automatic).
5. All portals of the level should also be exported as one mesh, with a proper name.

Editor:

1. Place static meshes into the scene.
2. Select all the meshes from one sector and then RMB → Utils → Change Type... → Baked.

Next, the steps will be the same:

1. Open the Super Static Tool.
2. Select "Add sector" in the toolbar and create the sectors needed (e.g. Room_1 and Room_2, etc.).
3. Select "Add Lightmap" and create the lightmaps needed (e.g. Room_1_lightmap, etc.).
4. If created with 3D software:
   1. Click Add Files and select them;
   2. Select your sector and assign a lightmap for it;
   3. Click Add Portals and select the portal file.
5. If created within the editor:
   1. Click the objects from the sector and, on the properties tab, choose a sector for it.
   2. Select the lightmap for them in the same tab.
   3. Look for "Portal" in the Entity List and create a portal. Draw it between the sectors. Remember to snap vertices!
6. Select lightmaps for bake and click "Build X Checked maps" to bake the selected lightmaps or "Build map" to build everything.
7. This may take some time (for small scenes, less than a minute, but for large ones, it can take much more time).
8. After the bake, click Compile Portals and you're done.

Properties