Architecture: Paying Attention To Details - Krunklehorn/io-scene-gzrs2 GitHub Wiki

Map generation doesn't work well with dense, thin or curved geometry. Don't stick a 300k polygon toothpick in a room full of exploding barrels.

More generally, objects placed in a map for ornament or clutter should be marked as "Detail". This prevents a mesh from cutting nearby geometry during bsptree generation. It should always be used for things like cars, telephone poles, statues, flower pots etc.

Let's see the problem in action...

1. Add a new icosphere mesh to the scene and set it's type to "World".
2. Position it hovering somewhere in the middle of the room.
3. Save the project and export the map.
4. Create an empty project and import the map with the "Bsptree" and "Bounds" switches enabled.
5. Show the "<mapname>_Bounds_Bsptree" collection and note how many bounding boxes are clustered around the icosphere. This is bad.
6. Take a look at the "<mapname>_Bsptree#" meshes and note any cuts in the walls surrounding the icosphere. See how they jut out at odd angles? We can do better.
7. Open the project again, select the icosphere and enable the "Detail" switch.
8. Save, export, re-import and test again. Much cleaner.

Pro Tip: World meshes marked as both Collision and Detail still contribute to the bsptree of the collision pass. To avoid long compile times and in-game performance problems, always create separate, low-poly collision meshes for complex objects. GunZ doesn't play well with curved surfaces anyways, so they should only be used for ornamentation.

Pro Tip: Empties marked as "Occlusion" planes can be used to specify bsptree and octree cuts manually, similar to Radiant/Hammer "Hint" brushes. Recommended for experienced mappers only.

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