DarkPlaces Limits

[toneddu2000]

[Spirit]

If you are plan to "only" use Darkplaces then I guess using q3bsp is a good idea.

[goldenboy]

The 65k vertex limit is a Quake 1 BSP format limit. It is not Darkplaces specific. A Quake 1 BSP can't have more than 65k verts.

DP supports Quake 3 BSP format, but I'm unsure what the limits are there.

It is also admittedly somewhat hard to break the 65k vertices limit (breaking the clipnodes limit seems easier, for me at least). I currently work on a map with over 13,000 brushes that hasn't broken the BSP format yet. Big maps and broken BSP format aren't necessarily connected, it depends on what is in the map.

[toneddu2000]

[goldenboy]

You use q3bsp by using a tool called q3map2 to compile your map.

In short, Quake 1 maps use .wad files for textures, a Quake 1 map compiler, and Radiant set to "Quake" with the Quake gamepack. Very logical

Quake 3 maps use "shaders" (aka materials) for textures, a Quake 3 map compiler, and Radiant set to something other than "Quake" with something other than the Quake gamepack (probably "Darkplaces"). The gamepack includes an entity def file which gives you the selection of map entities for that game, as well as some format definitions etc.

I don't use q3bsp + DP for mapping, so others might give you better advice.

I have yet to hear a good description of what clipnodes are, except that they're obviously used for clipping and your map is filled with them. From a mapper perspective, your clipnodes count rises sky-high when you include an unusual amount of brush-based detail and wide open spaces combined (e.g. e1m2rq). The vertex limit, on the other hand, is usually broken by having a physically humungous map (e.g. e2m1rq) - lots of triangle terrain helps you break it quicker.

I don't think mapmodels count towards the BSP format limits since they're not physically part of the BSP. They will only add to the vertex count if you somehow convert them to .map format and physically paste them into the map (as opposed to loading them at runtime via misc_model or the like).

I don't know how well DP handles version 2 IQMs, Lord Havoc is the person to ask there.

[toneddu2000]

[mh]

The easiest way to break the limits is with a large unsealed map. As soon as you seal a map so that it will vis properly, QBSP removes a lot of "outside" brush faces, which will cause the numbers to go down quite a bit - otherwise it must generate vertexes and clipnodes for those too (despite the fact that the player will never actually be going there or seeing them). That's also the main reason why putting a big box around a map to make it seal is probably the worst thing you can do - QBSP can't remove the outside stuff and counts will skyrocket.

Clipnodes are just used for helping with collisions and traces - nothing much more you need to know about them. If you're familiar with traceline from QC or SV_RecursiveHullCheck from the engine - they depend on clipnodes.

One way to get the clipnodes count down is - if you have a large area with irregular geometry (like a smashed up floor) - you can just layer some simple clip brushes over the irregular stuff. QBSP will use those to generate clipnodes instead of your detailed geometry and the count will go down. Won't be suitable for all cases of course, but worth a try.

Having a look at the latest DarkPlaces beta source ()I can see that it supports IQM2 so that should be OK to go with. (I would have been shocked if it didn't as LordHavoc's rather distinctive mark is all over the IQM devkit sample code.)

[toneddu2000]

Thanks a lot for this clarification post, mh! Now I'm ready to start!