Quote: Original post by Dumptruck
BSP architecture has limits in what you can create. Also BSP construction tools are not as robust as traditional 3D editing programs like 3D MAX. A program like 3D MAX has been in development longer, by more people and has more people using it and submitting feedback than any BSP editor out there.

yes, but the robustness of a program like max is often useless when having to make something that will export as csg/bsp. The amount of pain you have to go through to make sure that what you make in a program like max is legal csg/bsp geometry is not something to take lightly. Using max to make csg/bsp geometry is like hiring rembrant to do a painting when your canvas only supports paint by numbers.

Quote: Original post by marshmonkey
yes, but the robustness of a program like max is often useless when having to make something that will export as csg/bsp. The amount of pain you have to go through to make sure that what you make in a program like max is legal csg/bsp geometry is not something to take lightly. Using max to make csg/bsp geometry is like hiring rembrant to do a painting when your canvas only supports paint by numbers.

Sorry I was unclear with my last post, my fault. I was NOT suggesting using MAX to create BSP geo. I was suggesting BSP geo be dropped all together. I was trying to bolster my argument of this by pointing out MAX or any other professional 3D package has so much more to offer. An obvious point I'll admit ;)

I also know Torque would get a lot more use if MAX could be used to build levels.

While bsp may be clunky to create, the advantage in it lies in the way it handles visibility. Controlling visibility with a level built in max is plain old messy. You have to group things and manually tell the engine when you can stop drawing different parts of your environment. If you could somehow write an algorithim that automatically sorts through the created geometry to generate a list of where things are visible, then you are right back at why we have bsp.

I'm talking interior environments here.

Manually creating visibility through cells and portals in MAX is not a problem at all. The flexibility in working with non-convex geometry far outways the few hours per level required to properly setup visibility for a level. Visibility for levels is something that should be planned for from the start, regardless of what platform you are developing with.

The vis compiler for the Quake series of games does produce decent automatic portal results but you will still need some manual visibility work if you want optimal performance.

The tools might have changed but the last time I used them, placing hint brushes was not as slick as something you could produce in MAX. You first have to know the arrangement of leaf nodes by loading up your level, remembering where you needed a portal, construct this portal out of hint brushes in the editor, re-export and hope the nodes were divided correctly. This trial and error process took time.

depending on what your game is i would suggest checking out the c4 engine. thankfully it does not use bsp (i once used an engien that did and hated it), it has great visibility control and allows seamless indoor/outdoor transitions through use of zones and portals.
and right now my programmer is making a plugin for 3ds max to where you can easily setup zones and portals within 3ds max and export out to the engine editor. i am not sure but i think he is going to release the source for it.

p.s. don't let the programmer art demo make you think the engine is bad graphically, it can produce some nice stuff.