BSP Based Terrain... anyone?

[Queen LaQuiffa|ZB|]

I do not like TerraEdit. I want to build outdoor terrain using the BSP based terrain in Ued2. CTF-Terra is a grand example of outdoor terrain and don't tell me he used Lightwave to make it.

If you are versed with BSP based terrain please comment on the following:

First I subtract a room.

Height: 4096
Width: 7680
Depth: 3584

I rebuild.

Next, I create the terrain grid.

Height: 256
Width: 7680
Depth: 3584

Widthsegments: 14
depthsegments: 20

These brush sizes are divisible by 128 to make centering easier. Also each "square" within the terrain grid has a 384 width and 256 depth.

I turn the terrain grid upside down and place it within the room at the bottom. I transform permanently after aligning perfectly.

I start to make terrain by raising each vertex along its Z-axis until I have something resembling cliffs. I DO NOT MOVE THE VERTEX ALONG THE X OR Y AXIS. To do this results in horrible errors. The top view of the grid looks the same as when I started. The vertices are perfectly vertical. I now have a very professional looking builder brush.

I transform permanently, deintersect, add, rebuild.

BAM!!! Horrid BSP holes! HOMs! ?@#$!

Whether I deintersect or not the same thing happens. Why?

Am I missing a step? Does "merge" or "separate" have anything to do with this? Should I export/import if that would do anthing?

I have experimented with these with no success. It seems the author of CTF-Terra did it this way but I can't get mine to work. If you have been able to pull this off tell me how.

My latest convoluted plan of attack was to add the terrain within an oversized room so it will have nothing to intersect with and then wrap sheets around the sides and top to keep players in and so it can have sky texture. But I kept the sheets at a 1 unit distance so they were not actually touching the terrain. (you couldn't tell it was not touching at that distance)

I thought this would work and it did, sort of. No BSP holes (thankfully) but instead I now have freaky huge invisible barriers in places around the map that make it unplayable. Strange. Well this idea hasn't worked out well either. I'm losing hope.

I'm sorry this post is longwinded but I wanted to give you all the data so hopefully you could tell me exactly what I am doing wrong. Thanks for reading if you got this far. Help me if you can.

[Mambo]

I'm not sure what you're doing wrong. Everything you said seems to be right - although, what do you mean by 'transform permanently'?

Also, I'm not sure if your second option is a good idea or not.

Actually, now that i think of it, why did you make the segment sizes 14 and 20? surely if you made them 16 and 24 they would fit better on the grid? As i'm sure you know, the editor ****s itself if you don't align with the grid, so that could be your problem.

hope that helps

[Slick_Willy]

1st of all you are supposed to subtract that brush from the world, not make a big box and add, IF you do you are in for a world of hurt. When you put in your data and build the brush you will notice all the grid squares are on the bottom of the brush, This is your floor, and the flat part at the top is the sky as well as the walls. Subtract the brush and then manipulate your brush while rebuilding and saving after every major set of changes. (Just so you can go back if you accidentaly make a HOM) You will be moving the verticies up into the brush for the hills and stuff. Also on a quick note, Don't manipulate the red builder brush and then try to subtract it a couple of hours later because you will never be able to make it. If you make one little mistake the editor can crash and you will lose everything. That is why you manipulate the subtracted brush instead while saving every so often. Plus you can rebuild often to see how it looks. I have Wheel of Time and the terrain in it was done with this same brush and it was always subtracted. Since you are only moving on the Z axis then you don't have anything to wory about as far as accidentally crossing those lines which will also cause problems. The only place you have to worry about it is on the walls. Notice how all those lines come from 1 point down to all the grid squares on each of the walls? Don't ever move any vertex that will cause these lines to overlap or you will get HOM. I've been working on a brush for my latest map using this BSP based Terrain Brush in UED2 (32x32 grid which is 8192 high and 12288x12288 square.)Although it has taken me about 10 hours so far it is looking good and I'm sure my brush is way more complicated than yours: (sorry if image is a little big 133kb)

http://members.home.com/naborssm/CTF-DevilsDen.jpg

[Mambo]

slickwily, with the bsp based terrain, can you move the vertices sideways as well as up or down, or just up and down? Also, what are the framerates like with it. I know terra edit produced shocking framerates, and this seems to be similar...

[Slick_Willy]

As you can see from the top down view it is possible to move the verticies where ever you want. I even have an area of my map where I created an over hang and the verticies are about 4 layers deep right on top of each other. However it becomes increasing difficult to keep from crossing those lines or edges or accidentally moving a vertex right on top of another one. I've probably crashed UED2 about 20 times so far making this brush because I either put a line or a vertex right on top of another. This is a long process and I hope it pays off, I have no HOM yet and the frame rates are good and just as long as you keep the poly count low then the brush really doesn't make a difference from any other brush. Terra edit caused slow downs mainly because of all the triangle polys all over the ground. If you have a large grid then you can't really have a large open area or your polys will go up. In my map players will be on the canyon floor and won't be allowed up in the mountains so the poly count never went over 120 on my map. If I tried to go into fly mode then yes, I saw polycounts into the 800s. The only way to get around the problem of all the triangles on the ground in open area is too make sure the open area is flat and then merge polys on your brush when you are done with it and this will make all co-planer polys into one.

[ChrisToth.hu]

Have you tried other values for depth, height...
I found that 32, 64, 128, 256, 512... powers of 2 are the
best numbers to use without getting BSP holes. But it's a major problem if you use numbers which cannot be divided by 4 (and do not use grid settings lower than 4). Make sure that each vertex is on the grid. Build your terrain from one subtract brush (room) and one add brush (terrain) which fits exactly into the subtract one. Rebuild...then select your add brush right click on it and set ORDER to LAST. Rebuild!
After this everything should be fine. Create a deintersected terrain brush brush from the add plus the subtract and it should work.
(It worked for me all the time.)

Bye.

[Queen LaQuiffa|ZB|]

Truth revealed! Thanks all. my hope is restored. SlickWilly your terrain looks awesome! Now I can finally get back to work. :)

[Slick_Willy]

Build your terrain from one subtract brush (room) and one add brush (terrain) which fits exactly into the subtract one

NO, NO, NO, NO. People, ignore this, do what I said, Use the terrain brush and subtract it to make your outside level. If you try to subtract a big cube first and then ADD your terrain brush then you might as well go outside and shoot yourself in the foot. You will heal up faster than the time it will take you to get rid of problems with that added brush. My map CTF-VPS-Epsilon was done this way until I realized I did it wrong but it was too late to change it and my FPS suffered because of it. This map I'm doing now has twice as much rock face detail than my other one and the frame rate is way faster. The TerraEdit program was done wrong in that it misleads into doing it with an added brush. I guess the author of that program didn't realize that it should be a subtracted brush instead of added. Keep in mind that this is for full level terrain. If you are only adding a couple of hills in your map with small terrain brush and the terrain brush isn't the primary floor then yes, you should add it

[TaoPaiPai]

Awesome.
Before using UT and UED ,I used to play half-life and build maps using Worldcraft.
What a change.Everyday,I bless the epic team for their great engine.There is no way you could do these great maps with a quake-engine game.Or it would take you months/years.
We are really lucky people. :)

[Bogdon]

Slick_Willy
Good bsp tutorial learned a lot nice terrain btw.Well I did everything you have said NOT to do exactly.Even though my map test plays fine right now I guess I am in for a world of hurt down the rd.Tell me I can save all those brushes and movers and import them to the new map without creating any problems after I do the bsp terrain properly this time :(
btw I had no idea that you could do that much damage to your foot, it was only a small caliber :).

[Slick_Willy]

Bogdon:
You may be okay if you added instead of subtracting, My map CTf-VPS-epsilon was where I last fell into the trap of doing it wrong myself. I subtracted a big cube and then added the terrain. Only big problem is that many adds in a level can mess things up even if it is only one brush. Once you start putting more added brushes in the level then you will have more adds than subtractions which is a problem usually. If you can make a new brush that is basically the same as the added one but subtract it this time then importing your stuff shouldn't be a problem. Just open up 2 editors and load up your map and the new one with the new terrain. In your current level select the terrain brushes while holding down ctrl. You should only have a couple. When you have them selected, hit the inverse button, this will select everything in your level except the terrain. Those brushes you selected first will now not be selected. Now just do a copy and go to your new map and do a paste. Should work okay

[Bogdon]

Slick_Willy
Thanx I have made a note of your comments.I did start again and posting that screen shot of your bsp editing finally showed me how that works properly.Every 1 trying to understand how this complex but important part operates should have a look at what you've done. Good stuff. P :)

[Arkive]

So, is it ok to do the subtraction and then do the vertex manipulation so you can see things changing as you go, or should you keep maniulating the brush until you've got it the way it should be and then do the subtraction? Obviously doing the subtraction first and changing vertices on that result would be easier because you could rebuild often nd really see the changes taking place as opposed to trying to visualize what the brush is going to end up looking like. I guess I could always subtract and then "Undo" if it isn't right, but if there's no harm in modifying the vertices of suntractions, I'd just as soon do that. Thanks in advance...

Jeff