UE4: What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Using BSP Brushes?

There are a lot of advantages for using BSP brushes. I've covered many of them in this and this tutorial.

But there are a lot of disadvantages I haven't covered yet and you need to know what they are.

So let's get to it...

Video Tutorial

Advantages of BSP Brushes

• Created and used inside UE4 editor
• Simple geometric/primitive shapes
• Very fast to add and iterate (no modeling, no texturing or lighting)
• Great as placeholder geometry
• Visualize what your final environment or playable level will be
• Speed. Implementation of your idea in the editor quickly with instant iteration and playability in real-time
• Perfect for prototyping and blockout phases of initial level creation

Disadvantages of BSP Brushes

• BSP is very slow if a lot of brushes are used; lots of brushes can hinder performance and often causes geometry errors (missing brush faces, flickering geometry)
• BSP isn't as intuitive and user friendly as it is in older engines such as Source or Quake
• BSP is not intended to be final in-game geometry, they are not optimized to be a final geometry
• BSP lacks detail that Static Meshes can provide
• Hard edges only (no smoothing groups)
• No control how lighting is handled (other than Lightmap Resolution and few Lightmass Settings)
• No control over how BSP is rendered
• Difficult and not practical to create high-quality detailed geometry
• BSP cannot be used with Blueprints

Remember: BSP is great for prototyping and blocking out your levels but limit how much BSP you have in the final release.

Next Tutorial

UE4: BSP Blockout Process - Abandoned Building and Terrain from Photo Reference

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