BSP!

[GreatEmerald]

Hmm, guess this sounds good, but... How do you get your maps without BSP errors? :-/
The point is that even if I try to build a simple tower, I get a heck of BSP errors and invisibilities and HOMs and other stuff like that. The bad thing is the engine limitations (gah, if only the UT Extension Pack was to be finished...). If it was UE2, I could simply use Static Meshes + Antiportals. But this is UE1 and there is no such thing... There are Meshes however.
So I think I could use them for decorations, such as columns. They need to be round, and they can happily use the usual collision.
Then there are zones. They help a lot, but unfortunately for my project I need something less to the zone side and more to the Antiportal side. As you can see here: http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/3513/shot3gk2.png this is not something that could be zoned off. Of course, the entrances can be, but nothing much. Unless make a huge invisible dome around it.
Then there are semisolid brushes. That's something I don't get (and probably the source of all the problems). You can not use it for making walking surfaces (or Might and Magic styled SLIP!). You can only make them additive. They must not touch any other surfaces. And otherwise they're brilliant. But the point is that as UT has the infamous Translocator, so you can't make places that others can't walk on (except skyboxes - but then those brushes should be all nonsolid!). So what should I make semisolid? Something you shouldn't think of walking on, but that you can touch? Like, pillars on the towers in the picture there? I believe that the cause of the columns there being lit unevenly and being able to look through brushes is actually caused of all brushes being solid... :-/
Then there is Merging Polygons. When should I use it? I don't get this point too.
Then there is Transform Permanently. It seems that it makes the texture panning back to default... That's not good. But when should I use it anyway? Always after rotating and before panning?

And anything else to consider? Oh, and I'm going on holidays, so might not reply quickly, but still, any help would be useful! I just hate the BSP errors!

[Buster]

If you do use semi-solid brushes, and don't want a player to walk through them, you can try putting a thin collision hull in front of it.

As for the BSP problems, have you taken a look at it in the BSP view and seen where the "holes" are? Did you try building the map using the "optimal" setting? There's lots you can try to fix them.

When a red brush (a terrain is a good example) is fairly huge, and as you look at it in the editor it disappears, that's when you use the Transform Permanently" feature. When using prefabs (.t3d red brushes) do not merge the polys during the import. Always keep the original polys intact. When you merge them lots of BS happens.

I'll get back to you about some more things in abit.

[GreatEmerald]

Collision hull... I don't trust brushes any more :-/ BlockAll works better At least for pillars.
Yes, I occasionally do, but... That view is a huge pile of random colours! Really, I have no idea what they mean.
What about after import? Or before export?

[Buster]

The UnrealEd Reference has some great notes about what all the colour of the brushes mean. As for lots of them blocking your view of the ones you are working with, use the "Hide Selected" button (left and bottom in the editor).

The important thing about "keep original polys intact" is when importing them ... as in the .t3d format into the editor.

[GreatEmerald]

Not the colour of the brushes - I know those. Red, blue, brown, pink, green etc. But in the BSP view, you can see a lot of seemingly random colours (when it's a single empty room (or a little more), the colour is red).

[Buster]

The colours in the BSP view don't mean anything in particular. They're just used to contrast, so you can more easily see the BSP cuts. The trick is to tweak your map so you have as few cuts as possible, and not a bunch of little or angled ones.

[GreatEmerald]

Oh, so the BSP views just show you the BSP cut places? But I want them to be hidden, not shown So if I can't notice them, no one can and there is no use of the BSP view.

[Pitbull]

BSP was discussed awhile back in the Unreal Ed section.

http://www.oldunreal.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1130975842


Here are some links  I posted there.

http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:BSP_Tree

http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:BSP_Hole_Background

http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:Node_Count/MergingDebate

[GreatEmerald]

Hmm, from the 2nd link it seems to be "Use semisolds everywhere that you don't usually walk on!", and the 3rd is too complex for me. :-/