BSP for alpha15 checklist

[jitspoe]

Just putting together a list for everything so I don't forget:

- re-convert all the textures with the gamma-corrected palette.
- update gamma correction in config.
- scale banner textures
- include missing q2 entities (func_plat, etc.)
- include new entities for PONG and KOTH
- set default texture flags for lights, water, clip, origin, etc.
- set unique values for barrels and ground textures (for phong lighting)
- update entity descriptions to be... more descriptive.
- make maps output into a maps/inprogress directory so they don't clutter up the main maps directory
- Make sure compilers are all the latest version.

I should have everything but the entity work done.  Anything I'm missing?

[Eiii]

Nope!

[IronFist]

Post removed

[Cobo]

that would be nice

[jitspoe]

Pong support for arenaball was hacked in with a .ent file.

[xiuide]

not sure is this is applicable to BSP but, i know that in GTKRadiant ( i ntergated the two) there is a plugin for terrain, the only problem is, it looks for a texture called "caulk" this texture is a very handy tool that makes the brush/ part of the brush the texture is appied to invisable, it also makes it so there is shorter compile times, as the compiler skips that brush, also is stops the vising of that brush, i think that it would be benifical to include that texture support in the next relase...as i tried convering it as well, and i get an error, becuase the build (of the game) does not support it, so i feel that mabye make a small tweak to build 15 (if its only a small one) and include support for this texture.

[Dirty_Taco]

Post removed

[jitspoe]

There's actually a "skip" texture, but I don't think it's necessary.  Caulking is for quake3.  In quake2, hidden surfaces are removed automatically.  As for the terrain generator, it's available separately (BSP doesn't support plugins) and generates detail hint brushes, which speed up compile times considerably as they don't generate portals.

[xiuide]

hidden surfaces INGAME are hidden, however, im compiling a test map right now for a way im trying to make terrain, the map, though small, was using over 6000 numportals, so after reading your post, i desided to try and appy the skip texture anyway, to brush faces, insead of the entire brush, this helped greatly, because what it did was knock the numportals down, due to the fact that is skips them in compile, instead of skipping faces ingame, so it saves compile time without appying the skip to everywhere i could, i still dropped the portals down to just above 4000

[jitspoe]

Did you try using detail hint brushes?  Gensurf should generate these automatically (or maybe it's an option somewhere).  You will need dewan's qbsp/vis compilers, though (included with the current bsp pack).

[Eiii]

Detail hint? How are those different from hint?

[jitspoe]

Detail hints don't create portals.  This makes it so terrain maps don't take a year to vis.

[Eiii]

Sorry, I don't completely know what all this means.
I understand how the in-game VIS works. But how are portals related?

[jitspoe]

First hit on google: http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/visportals.php

While that is for doom3, the basic concept is the same.  The difference is that in doom3, the mapper manually creates every vis portal, whereas in quake2 maps, the portals are created automatically.  Sometimes thousands of portals are created, making the VIS compilation stage take an extremely long time.  Detail hint brushes designate brush splitting without creating portals (though they require a special compiler) so vis won't take so long.

[Eiii]

I know about those, I just didn't know they were called portals. Making them manually might have it's advantages...

[jitspoe]

Well, that's what hint brushes are for   Though you still have the ones that are generated automatically... hmm, maybe I could make a quick program that would duplicate all of the brushes as detail hint brushes, removing all of the automatically generated portals and leaving only the manually placed hint brushes to generate portals.

Or maybe there's some kind of option in the compiler to do that....