Hello,
Thank you for UE5 early access!
I have a question about menu. Although UE5 has a lot of the cutting edge features, I wanted to use familiar BSP then noticed I couldn’t find it in Mode menu. There is brush edit menu but nothing to place a brush geometry.
Doesn’t UE5 have BSP? Or do I need to activate some plugin for it?
BSP have been removed from UE5.
You can add basic static meshes similar to BSP from the menu.
See https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/onlinelearning-courses/upgrading-to-ue5-early-access
in “Reviewing Engine Changes” at 2:53.
This is very bad news. Using BSPs and converting them to static meshes is fast way to create simple things straight in the editor.
The BSP menu has been replaced by the Mesh Editing menu. All the same BSP shapes are there as static meshes, and with the new mesh editing tools you have more capabilities to modify them than before.
Yes the Mesh Editing menu has the same shapes and all the fancy tools but they are not very useful for building things. If I create a 100 unit box and a 300 unit box the latter is just scaled version of the former meaning that I can’t use the same texture on them because of streching:
Another issue is that there is no way (at least I didn’t find) to use subtractive brushes. They are very handy for creating windows and doorways etc. With BSPs you could build for example a simple house in no time, convert it to a static mesh and assign materials to it. That’s not possible anymore. Yes one could always use Blender or similar but all small indie game developers don’t have time or capabilities to learn using a 3D modelling software just to create simple things for their games. I could bet that many single-man game studios are dependent of BSPs, they just are a life saver for those who can’t use other modeling softwares to create assets.
WoW! Didn’t notice that, thanks!!
As for your texture issue, there are UV tools in the mesh editing menu that can solve that.
And no there aren’t subtractive brushes because brushes are BSP. The tool is meant for meshes.
However, you can use boolean operations which are included in the tools
It’s still there.
Create → Place Actors → Geometry tab
FYI: Left Alt-P works to bring up “Place Actors” too.
Thank you for letting me know how access to BSP tool in UE5. Also, it is good to know that UE5 will remove BSP in the future. I watched the video mentioned here then activated the Mesh Editing Tool and started learning it to be ready for future update.
My favorite workflow was to do gray-boxing with BSP then converted them to invisible blocking volumes and place modular static meshes inside the volumes for human eyes. It was useful because placing visible meshes rarely broke a game play in the workflow.
It seems I won’t have to change the workflow thanks to the Mesh Editing Tool, supporting to convert between a mesh and a volume. (UE5 won’t remove a blocking volume, right?)
Thanks!
Thnk you for this!
Hi all,
Is this Mesh Editing Tool which I have to use instead of BSP (because it’ll be replaced soon)?
I’m asking because I’m a bit confused, this workflow (in the link) describes just small changes for the static mesh, and it seems not useful for the blocking of the entire level for example.
Thanks.
Had to sign in to say thank you to much. I was really frustrated thinking this function was gone. This is so needed for rough rapid level prototyping.
Happy game making 
Thank you so, so, so, so, so, so, so, SO much for this. 
Hello,
To prototype whole of your level, you can place primitives to level and modify them on level editor if necessary. Modifying static mesh geometry from static mesh editor is just an option. As you do with BSP, you can place primitive shapes, move their faces and edges, insert edge loops, and extract faces, directly on the level editor.
As @KAIRA_Deepware described above, I feel Mesh Modeling Tool is upper-compatible with BSP tool. I can do everything I did with BSP and enjoy more advanced feature on Mesh Modeling Mode too, except for subtract operation.
The Mesh Modeling Tool’s “boolean” operation is not compatible with subtract operation in BSP (you can’t move subtraction geometry. Boolean operation change your geometry permanently.) On the other hand, converting graybox geometry having holes to Blocking Volume is more precise than old one. For me, this advantage overshadows the disadvantage.
I hope my reply helps.
Thanks!
I thought I would leave this for posterity. You can still find geometry brushes in UE5 under the Place Actors panel. Even with all the new SM modeling tools, they can’t hold a candle to the speed and workflow of brushes for whiteboxing.
Hear Hear!
For posterity, I would like BSP/CSG and the *.t3d file system to never disappear.
Nothing is faster for whiteboxing/greyboxing/alphatesting iteration and re-iteration.
Interested to see what the future will hold for geometry scripting in this regard, and also, the potential for volume-placing of assets, using (in essence) BSP geometry to draw out areas where level meshes should be placed/not-placed structurally within/outside/aligned (to) a drawn geometric area using brushes.
The work already in this area is very strong with speed, and, assets by volume placing is a way of bulk-building maps/levels/environment for this to all work.
UE5 is going to take this system forward, in my opinion.
