Hi all, I am trying to replicate The Corridor level from this YT tutorial and I am constantly wondering about when to use BSP brushes and when to convert them into meshes (doing the latter seems a bit time ineffective especially given the UV channel being set to 0 by default).
Now I´ve done my research (here and around the web), but all the threads are from more than 2 years ago. (I hope I did not miss anything) So I was hoping some of you might give me some updated comprehensive answer on this topic.
To my understanding, the BSPs are nowadays OK to be used even for basic level geometry such as floors, walls and ceilings. Is that correct? Or can I expect running into problems when I am lighting up the scene and doing finishing touches?
Thank you kindly for taking the time to read this. I am super stoked about UE4 and doing some more work in it.
In general you should be fine using BSP brushes for certain low-importance level geometry which you just don’t have the time to properly model and texture. I think it’s suffice to say that you don’t want to be relying on BSP brushes for major level geometry.
A common technique to mitigate the time inefficiencies that come with modelling level geometry is to design a “kit”. This is a collection of just a few to several dozen or even hundreds pieces of reusable level geometry, like wall sections, pillars, frames, etc. Instead of modelling a different wall with a different door and a different door frame for each and every door in your level, you would just model a wall with a door sized hole, then model a handful of door frames, and then model a handful of doors. Now you can use composition to build your levels very rapidly and anything that needs to be changed only has to be done once. There are several tutorials online that cover how to model a level kit.
Thank you for your answer. So in general, I should be fine with using BSP brushes for certain geometry (floor, ceiling, walls or concrete pillars) and the lighting (and reflections and all the pretty stuff) will behave the same way as with a static mesh?
I am certainly not trying to be lazy here (the kit seems like a practical thing to do, though), just figuring out why (besides the obvious lack of advanced shape or detail) are people so down on poor BSP brushes - they seem like pretty cool dudes, albeit a bit… simple
Thanks again!
EDIT: Also, that reminded me, are there any caveats to converting BSP brush into a static mesh directly in the UE4 editor? (I checked the difference between an already created mesh in the starter content and a converted mesh made by me - especially the UV lightmaps - and it seemed OK.) Any reason why I would want to be importing meshes from, say, Maya? (I guess I AM being lazy here.)
Brushes require more memory than meshes which is why it is recommended to have the final version of your Levels be constructed mostly out of meshes. The more that your Level is made out brushes, the more risk you have that you will run into performance or memory issues. However, brushes are quicker to use and edit, so they are often used to prototype the layout of a Level and then, at the end, they are replaced with meshes. See the following article: What is the Difference Between Meshes vs Brushes in Unreal Engine 4?
To answer your question in the comment, a static mesh is a static mesh. It doesn’t matter if you’re using one that was imported or created in Unreal from a BSP. The only benefit from importing would be that you could have reorganized the UVs of the mesh so the texture is aligned to your liking. Other than that it’s the same.
