[=;198064]
No, people don’t use it much because it is a dated method of creating a level. Today it is only really used for blocking out parts of your level, then converted into a static mesh and modeled in a 3d creation tool.
The engine is optimized for static meshes, not editable BSP sections, and the performance difference is massive, with the reason being they are still in an editable state, don’t have UV’s / Lightmaps etc, etc.
Their usefulness is very limited in modern game creation, it was a big deal back in quakes days as levels were basically just a bunch of hallways rooms and right angles everywhere, but is no longer the case when it comes to level design.
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is patently false, BSP’s usefulness is enormous provided there are decent tools to work with it. Today in Unreal it’s mostly used for blockouts, because Unreal has never had good BSP tools (even when it was more prominent in Unreal level design).
The performance difference is irrelevant to discussion because it’s a symptom of Unreal’s deliberate lack of emphasis on it and solvable if Epic decide to solve it (and BSP does have UVs and lightmaps, but whatevs).
It’s no more a dated method of creating a level than any other; these methods have just about been around for as long as each other.
If we’re saying that CSG is outdated, we’re also saying that level designers who are not 3D artists are outdated, which is dangerous because those skillsets do not tend to have significant overlap. Expecting an artist to create great levels is exactly like expecting programmers to generate great art.
[=Errvald;198066]
Hammer editor is game specific, most of the games are not made out of simple geometry ( like your example ).
I think BSP covers the need of placeholders well.
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Hammer isn’t game-specific any more than UnrealEd is. It’s engine-specific, sure… but what’s your point?
Most Quake-derived games are primarily made out of (relatively) simple geometry (although BSP need not be boxy), with a few props scattered here and there.
Examples:
All Valve’s games.
Look at the HL2: EP2 screenshot at the bottom of post. The staticmeshes in screenshot are the ceiling lights, fencing, speakers, obvious physics objects and pipes. That’s a pretty sick tunnel with pretty sick lightmaps on it though! Could use more polys on the tunnel, but that’s not a BSP limitation.
Portal 2 screenshot. Even less staticmeshes here, but the game is so pretty! And it shipped like ! We’ve got some rubble on the floor, some (but not all!) of which is staticmesh and the rest is BSP. The cube dispenser. Bits of strut in the ceiling aren’t BSP. The door’s not. That’s it!
Sure, most of Portal is literally white boxes, but what are we saying, here? We only want people to use Unreal if their game happens to be easier developed without BSP? That would have been ruling out Portal. Portal.
CS:GO! Look at all sweet BSP. Don’t be fooled by the sticky-outy bricks on the corners, those walls are BSP. They just add sticky-outy brick meshes to the corners when they’re done iterating and hardly anybody ever knows the difference.
Thirty Flights of Loving!
Thirty Flights is literally on the Quake 2 engine. Luckily, the Quake 2 engine has better tools for non-artists to create and iterate upon level geometry than Unreal does. Again, I’ll preempt any “Unreal is for games with good graphics hurr hurr” by reminding you that Unreal is specifically, calculatedly trying to move into the indie game space, and for the business-oriented minds among you, Thirty Flights was profitable.
Double Action Boogaloo! Sure, it’s a bit blocky even by Source standards, but the important thing to remember is it’s an game that the team wouldn’t have been able to create as well on Unreal because Unreal has bad tools.
If it seems like I’m going overboard here, here’s the tl;dr: all of the above games are clearly excellent and clearly successful and clearly made by super smart people, and Unreal would have been a bad choice for them because its geometry tools are poorly implemented and don’t allow rapid and carefree iteration cycles. People don’t choose Quake-derived engines because they’re stupid, they choose them because there are extremely solid foundations with which Unreal has never been able to compete.
Bam.