UnrealEd: BSP or Static Mesh
polycounter lvl 18
OK, what's kosher here folks?
I've been goofing off with UnrealEd, and have built interiors and exteriors as Static Meshes, and they seem to run just fine. Given, it's just a small test, but will a pure static mesh level's performance be acceptable? Or will I need to BSP out the bulk of the level and just use a little static mesh frosting? I've just been exporting .ase out of Max for my tests so far. Collision for the exterior and interior seemed to work out OK.
Performance is obviously a concern, but appearance is vital, and we'd much rather do our modeling in Max or Maya for the control, rather than UnrealEd. Is this doable?
If anyone could give me a quick rundown on their workflow, and the pros and cons of Static Mesh level building, I'd really appreciate it.
Also, is open geometry preferred for proper lighting? I've noticed if I butt two meshes up against each other, there is an odd little lighting seam when I add little lights in UnrealEd. When I blow out the poly on the backside of one of the meshes, the lighting seems fine. But could this cause collision issues, or is UnrealEd smart enough to consistently figure out non-manifold geometry? Or might it have just been a smoothing/hard edge issue?
Thanks,
I've been goofing off with UnrealEd, and have built interiors and exteriors as Static Meshes, and they seem to run just fine. Given, it's just a small test, but will a pure static mesh level's performance be acceptable? Or will I need to BSP out the bulk of the level and just use a little static mesh frosting? I've just been exporting .ase out of Max for my tests so far. Collision for the exterior and interior seemed to work out OK.
Performance is obviously a concern, but appearance is vital, and we'd much rather do our modeling in Max or Maya for the control, rather than UnrealEd. Is this doable?
If anyone could give me a quick rundown on their workflow, and the pros and cons of Static Mesh level building, I'd really appreciate it.
Also, is open geometry preferred for proper lighting? I've noticed if I butt two meshes up against each other, there is an odd little lighting seam when I add little lights in UnrealEd. When I blow out the poly on the backside of one of the meshes, the lighting seems fine. But could this cause collision issues, or is UnrealEd smart enough to consistently figure out non-manifold geometry? Or might it have just been a smoothing/hard edge issue?
Thanks,
Replies
I'm not UnrealEd-savvy at all, but I'm pretty sure that the mainly static-mesh approach is fine. If you open up some of the levels that come with UT2k4, you will see that a large amount of the maps are often made up mainly of static meshes.
Don't take my word for it, though ... wait until someone who actually knows what they're talking about comes along