Anyone have any suggestions for an efficient visibility system that handles massive (300,000+) polycounts? After playing around it seems detailed quake3 levels have about 35,0000. If I try to make a BSP tree with many curves etc, I end up with so many splits its unhealthy. I know quake3 uses Quadratics for its curves but I can''t use quadratics for EVERYTHING. Anyone have any suggestions for a system that can handle this reliably?

Personally, one of the best solutions I''ve come up with that didn''t involve proprietary algorithms was a hybrid BSP and loose portal system. Tag triangles as belonging to a given room, and create sets of invisible polygons connecting those rooms. Then construct local BSPs for each room, and while rendering clip them to the portals. This approach attempts to combine the best of both worlds, i.e., you get the spatial subdivision of BSPs and the visibility information of portals with relatively small BSP trees. Another good thing about it is that you''re not restricted to BSPs, if for instance you have terrain outside of a building, you can render it any way you like and clip it to the window portals. Or if you have a room in the basement that leads into a cave that you would rather render using a layered terrain algorithm, you can have it render itself while clipping to the doorway portal. Or whatever. You also get to possibly modify geometry on the fly, if your rooms arent too complicated and you can afford to sort the modified geometry into the local BSPs. Not to mention various optic effects (mirrors, etc) are a breeze with this approach.

-goltrpoat


--
Float like a butterfly, bite like a crocodile.