Im confused here. I keep hearing people say that BSP brushes are not to be used in level design, that you are supposed to use them just frame everything out, then replace with static meshes. Can someone pls tell me why? Why cant you use BSPs, and put whatever texture or material you want on them? Is it that big of a deal, because I am pretty far along and dont really want to go back and rebuild everything. I used mostly textured BSPs in the UDK and everything looked fine to me, as well as to people I have shown stuff to. My favorite group to show stuff to are teenage gamers. They will be brutally honest. If you can make them happy, then who cares what anyone else thinks right? Seriously, they are the best critics in the world.
The engine is designed to work better with static meshes and most people find it easier creating more complex worlds with them but if you’re getting the outcome you want using mostly BSP brushes with a work flow that suits you, then who cares what people say.
Thanks for taking the time to answer me jmr. Im totally new to UE4, and I have never had any issues with using BSPs in the UDK. Im telling you, im getting kinda frustrated with UE4. It is prettier, and some aspects of it are easier to use, but the UDK is more familiar to me. I guess I need to keep plugging away.
[QUOTE=KingMatty;49312]
Thanks for taking the time to answer me jmr. Im totally new to UE4, and I have never had any issues with using BSPs in the UDK. Im telling you, im getting kinda frustrated with UE4. It is prettier, and some aspects of it are easier to use, but the UDK is more familiar to me. I guess I need to keep plugging away.
Yeah, the reasons are performance based for the most part. Also, if you need additional UV channels, or you want to set up your own UVs, then a static mesh would be required. But if your project has no performance or display issues, then it shouldn’t matter.
By the way, you can actually convert your BSPs to meshes through a right click option, so there’s always that if you’d like to tweak performance any down the line!
Cheers,
-D
Brushes in UE4 are identical almost to UE3 in terms of why you don’t want to use them too much. All that is said about brushes here also went for UE3.
Performance aside there is also the very visible limitation of no smoothing edges.
Converting brushes to meshes should not be done! Unless you deal with very basic brushes (a cube). The outcome of that conversion would be terrible.
And indeed if performance is no problem, and you only have hard edges, sure brushes work fine and you can just carry on with them.
[QUOTE=Hourences;49565]
Converting brushes to meshes should not be done!
Could you elaborate on that? Thanks!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2300830/dontconvertbrushes.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2300830/upclose1.jpg
Unless you want all your meshes to be that quality standard, you should not convert anything more than basic primitives.
thanks did not realize that myself even, damm got to really start learning max more for simple stuff
[QUOTE=Hourences;49629]
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2300830/dontconvertbrushes.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2300830/upclose1.jpg
Unless you want all your meshes to be that quality standard, you should not convert anything more than basic primitives.
I haven’t tried converting bsp to SM, but it could be good if we had a good option like that. Materials/textures can be easily scaled on brushes. If there was a conversion which turns the brush to static mesh, generates UVs, keeps the textures as it was then it would be a very useful feature.
[QUOTE=mzprox;49852]
I haven’t tried converting bsp to SM, but it could be good if we had a good option like that. Materials/textures can be easily scaled on brushes. If there was a conversion which turns the brush to static mesh, generates UVs, keeps the textures as it was then it would be a very useful feature.
If only the topology of the created mesh was better… The picture above is a great example of why not to do that. Wow, I hadn’t realized it was THAT bad. :eek:
I wouldn’t mind if the topology was that bad if it still looks ok. I wouldn’t use it for any complicated model, but if I wasneeded a wall or something for the environment then I wouldn’t mind if I get 50 tris instead of 30 for example. As I said it still should look ok.
Wow, I didnt expect all of these replies, thanks everyone for taking the time to post. All of this info is extremely useful. Im building an office complex/business park kind of thing, with several buildings and little parks and stuff. Down one of alleys there will be a tunnel going into a really jacked up underground area. Im building this as an exercise to better learn the U4 before I dive into something serious. Im learning every day, mostly thanks to this forum and all you guys. Like my grandfather always loved to say " You never learn anything meaningful and worthwhile all by yourself "
What about using BSP for very simple geometry? I’m not planning to model actual objects or things out of brushes. That would be way too tedious. But simple things, like walls and floors. How would you go about doing that?
If you create SMs for walls, wouldn’t you have to create a separate mesh for each wall segment, that’s of a different size? That sounds like a planning and measuring nightmare. Or if you use a simple reusable plane that you scale to fit your map, wouldn’t the texture be stretched too and look wrong?
Imagine a game with very simple level geometry, like Portal 1. Would it be okay to use BSP in this case? (Not for the doors and gates, but just for the level geometry)
That would be fine to build in BSP. This is not a black and white thing. There’s nuances, trade offs etc. so you can’t really give absolute and definite answers to in between cases like your portal example.
Building the above in brushes would lead to more random triangles and vertices than if you’d use meshes, and a higher drawcall count, however if you’d use modular meshes you’d have probably about the same drawcall count and the same if not more triangles/vertices. Then again the triangles don’t have too much of an impact anyhow. Plus that scene is so simple you wouldn’t hit performance issues anyway as well. So either works.
And to answer your question about separate meshes, you’d use modular meshes. Look at my Solus videos to see how I built up the levels using separate modular pieces. None of the pieces were made for where they are used. It is lego. You build universal pieces and use it in all kinds of creative ways.
[QUOTE=Hourences;51103]
And to answer your question about separate meshes, you’d use modular meshes. Look at my Solus videos to see how I built up the levels using separate modular pieces. None of the pieces were made for where they are used. It is lego. You build universal pieces and use it in all kinds of creative ways.
Thanks. I’ll check out your videos.
Hey guys,
if i wanna build an indoor level isnt that more complicated since the new engine because now i have to use pieces of walls and floors just to create a room ? back then you could just subtract a cube and the room was done, now i need meshes for walls and floor and celling etc.
no ?