Inside3d's Quake Mapping Tips & Tricks

[Team Xlink]

Hello.

I thought posting this would be a good idea because it is always nice to know the tips and tricks of something.

Post any mapping tips tricks, ideas and anything related here.

Tip

Don't merge brush's. If you merge brush's it creates z fighting and I believe it slows down the maps because it cuts the brush differently.

[Chip]

Don't merge brush's. If you merge brush's it creates z fighting and I believe it slows down the maps because it cuts the brush differently.

Why would you have two brushes touching sides on the same plane?

There are ways and reasons NOT TO.

[mh]

It needn't slow down the map though. You'd be surprised how large a percentage of map slowdown is actually due to the renderer.

[metlslime]

what do you mean by "merge brushes?"

if you mean CSG merge that some editors support (radiant), there is nothing wrong with that.

if you mean overlapping brushes, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. It depends on how they overlap, if nothing is aligned to a grid and everything interpenetrates by a few units here and there, you could end up with a pretty unoptimized BSP. But if you have overlapping brushes that are cleanly constructed and adhere to a grid, its not really a problem.

if you mean a brush entity that has a surface which is coplanar and overlapping with a sufrace on another brush entity or the world, then yes, that will cause z-fighting.

[Willem]

Why would you have two brushes touching sides on the same plane?

There are ways and reasons NOT TO.

That was a fairly common practice in the old days of mapping and I still do it today for a lot of things. Putting a sign on a wall, adding a detail panel to a long wall or large floor, etc. The BSP compiler always cuts that correctly so why would I break up the brushes manually?

[Chip]

Putting a sign on a wall, adding a detail panel to a long wall or large floor, etc.

You're right with that. It might depend on the engine if z-fighting is removed. I guess.