UE4: What are BSP Blockouts in UE4 and Why Are They So Important? - Tutorial

[@Max-fp8np]

Thank you, it really helped me understand what a 'Blockout' is, how to create one and what it's used to. gonna do that now :)

[@drillcream]

Thanks Alex...One thing I thought of, when it comes to scaling, I would assume mathematics plays a big part. Knowing how many units a step, run, jump is, player size and width within the mechanics of the game. Perhaps a video covering such a thing I think might be good? I'd like to know more about those kind of principles.

[@harrysanders818]

Mathematics have nothing to do with this. Its just the usual way a programmer approaches art, which will only give you stiff static results. It needs to look and feel right. Not measured right. The only point where you would measure is when creating modular parts, to make them snap and efficient.

[@SINfromPL]

@@harrysanders818 Scale is essential for VR.

[@darodism]

This is the part I need to do soo much and I been looking more for artstyles for scifi more. Thank you for something basic but necessary I really needed this.

[@Johnhelldives]

As always thanks for making a great video Alex! Can't wait for some more tutorials!

[@bentripn]

Thank you for the video! I very much enjoy your content.

[@WorldofLevelDesign]

Thanks Ben!

[@mihovilmikulec]

Very useful, thank you!

[@jeremiedemoleon3307]

🔥Thanks for the video 🔥

[@VirtualWorlds]

Definitely bro! I enjoyed it tremendously to! I thought the video was very informative and excellent in delivering the information which is important to know if you're making a game in unreal Engine 4.

[@harrysanders818]

Wouldnt it be beneficial, compositional wise, to also block in your lighting as well all along at some point? ..I mean its all about value pattern and establishing the mood right? And this would in turn then influence the geometry layout again. I think doing basic lighting focal points, seeing how the scene is probably being lit would also belp. One could always switch lights off and look at the bare bsp skeleton again. Would you see something against it? I think its hard to stay on blockswithout lights only for too long, because the visuals in the end are all determined by the lighting right? Just thinking, it could be in fact beneficial to also loosely iterate on your lighting early on. But I get that the geo block in underneath is still the foundation which has to be right in order for the lighting to work. I just think lighting is something that might not be postponed for too long in a creation of an environmemt at least. In painting, there is an underlying construct calleda value pattern, where you define the distribution of light, medium, and dark areas and the proportion of those then establish a mood. This is all done often even before any drawing or shading takes place. Just masses of tone. I think it could be similar in leveldesign processes. And the bsp would be the constructional drawing foundation as a canvas for this process. I think what I mean is that it all comes down to all design elements should work together and relate to each other, like lights producing colors and shapes. So lighting would mayforce you to drastically adjust your bsp anyway, therefire I think it would be not too bad to design it also from early on maybe. Especially in conjunction with those simple blockouts, i think its a good place to test your basic ighting as well without getting distracted by static mesh and textural detail.

[@harrysanders818]

I think Im getting this wrong somewhat. Its a bit of a different layering in the workfliw when it comes to 3 dimensional levels as opposed to painting: Its more that the BSP only(without lighting) is your abstraction, which is similar to a value pattern and blockout in painting. It contains basic information about where space is filled and where not. Some broad areas, some smaller etc. Lighting then in 3d would be more like the shading in painting, where you start thinking about where the lightsources come from and you then light your objects accordingly, but staying inside this abstraction as close as possible value wise. As you dont have only 1-2 or 3 lightsources in an entire playable environment, meaning an interactive painting, this further seperation betweem the raw geo and the value pattern(which means seperation of geo and lighting) needs to be made. Which adds an additional step when working in 3d. I think i got it now. The bsp needs to look as good as it can on a broad level, just like the abstraction of value in a painting should look good and establish a mood. Lighting will then come later when youve degined the areas and then you will be able to layer that value pattern on top, jus like in painting, as if the bsp blockout was your canvas. Its like in 2d, 2 dimensional shapes and their relationships establish the mood. Whereas in 3d, 3 dimensional spatial relationship are the mandatoty basis for this even be possible to happen, I guess.

[@WorldofLevelDesign]

I agree with you. Broad strokes of lighting blockouts should be done. If you have an idea how the lighting will be done in your final work which the idea in our minds already contains that, then yes, I would throw in a Directional light and various other broad Point Lights and Spot Lights to help illustrate the idea better. No focus on lighting but more of like you said, values, direction and tone. I often do that since using BSP without any lighting at all is very difficult in UE4.

[@harrysanders818]

@@WorldofLevelDesign Nice! Thanks for the reply and clearing things uP! There is so much to take into consideration when doing this stuff and this cleared up the uncertainties for me about how and if to approach lighting during blockout. With the emphasis on "broad" lighting. Not implelemting the real lighting and thinking about physical types of lightsources and such too much and risk to get lost. Guess thats the fine difference. Thinking about how an area should feel and making your "block lighting" as loose and adjustable as your bsp brushes. A Directional and some pointlights seem optimal for this. Whereas maybe stay away from spots and area, as they might could get too specific. Unless you already know why you would have them. And you are right, without any lighting at all, it may become hard to judge where you are going. Still, your BSP only should look and feel good without any lighting, as the most basic underlying abstraction. I also agree, that its good to get some broad lighting done in if you already have an idea how an area could feel, but if you dont or havent concepted it yet, then i think its best to not enforce yourself. In the end, there is no "one" right workflow, and the guidelines are jus tools and aid to help you stay on track. Mixing some of the stages up slightly, if you can without getting lost, is no harm and can even burst creativity. But only if you are aware of the fundamentals and the guidelines and you somewhat know how and why you got lost if you do. Its like painters, who erase whole parts of their painting and start with raw drawing again inside an othwerwise already developed and elaborated picture. Being able to do that makes the workflow flexible, but you have to be well aware of each step and how they are layered together. Thats why practing a more defined workflow first makes so much sense, before you are starting to be able to mix things up a bit more. But the difference being that in 3d and gamedev, there is much more at stake when doing so in an already produced and elaborated or even scripted environment, its somewhat more important to be sure that each stage, each layer is solid, because otherwise it all crumbles and you get stuck in re-work loop, which will take a lot more time and reconsiderations than reworking an area in a painting. This is what this channel and WoLD is all about anyway :) There is so much to get confused about on the way, all the little intricacies... I even see some artist prefer putting in their art first without any bsp beforehand, but then again, their art is not too complicated and seem easily exchangable. I see that also in sculpting: Some sculptors work with real low resolution meshes to get their basic shapes, while others jus hack and slash their large and medium forms directly into a sphere.....then one ask oneself: "hell....what is the "right" workflow to do things"?...until you realize there is none, but your own, which works for you. The only thing you have to know about and internalize are the guides and the fundamentals... and to be able to apply them to your work. And be well aware of what you are doing and about the solidness of your underlying basic layers at any time. Bottom line I guess is: Im glad this channel exists and your book anyway, and that it triggers me to think so hard about this stuff that intensively before even jumping into my first fully playable environment.

[@WorldofLevelDesign]

Thanks Harry and thanks for the in-depth comments. I got many more BSP videos coming out soon. I always wanted to go in-depth into BSP and I'm finally getting it done.

[@massivetree7937]

Can you export BSP geo to use as reference then for your final Static Mesh?

[@WorldofLevelDesign]

Yes. I do this all the time. One of my favorite workflows. Select the brush or multiple brushes then go to File > Export Selected and choose .FBX or .OBJ You can also export the entire scene: File > Export All

[@theoneand0nly874]

How did you create those windows

[@shaezbreizh86]

turn the brush to substractive

[@TommyGunsXL]

Great explanation, there are few videos teaching you the basics of UE4 workflow. Thank you :) Some noob questions: is it possible to convert bsp brushes into meshes and use them as collision model (combine bsp and imported model)? And is it possible to export Unreal meshes into other 3D-Software, like Blender and Maya? Thank's again for this video!

[@WorldofLevelDesign]

Thanks Tommy. Yes, you can convert BSP Brushes into Static Meshes. After selecting the BSP Brush, inside Details panel you can choose "Convert to Static Mesh". Instead of converting BSP Brush to Static Mesh then using collision from that, there is a better option. You can convert any BSP brush into a Blocking Volume to use as collision. Select the BSP Brush and in Details panel choose from drop down menu "Convert Actor: Blocking Volume". And for last question. Yes. You can export any UE4 Static Mesh from Content Browser as FBX or OBJ (or few other types) and then open them inside any 3d software. Inside Content Browser, right click on a Static Mesh and choose "Asset Actions > Export". I will cover all these at some point later as I create more BSP Brush tutorials.

[@TommyGunsXL]

@@WorldofLevelDesign Sorry for the late reply! Thank you very much, you helped me a lot :) I was on holiday and not able to thank you earlier...

[@monkeyrobotsinc.9875]

Wowowowowoooowww! Ty!

[@VirtualWorlds]

BSP brushes are quite resource-intensive and take up a lot of resource power. It's always good practice wear a possible to turn your brushes into static meshes for which have a tutorial on my channel for that full stop if you're not subtracting from the brush I would recommend using semi solids as this takes less processing power if you really have to have the bsp brush in your level and you can't afford to have a static mesh. BSP in case you didn't know stands for binary space partition. It was the same in the old unreal editor which use CSG v-type brushes which I think it's the same in unreal Engine 4 and CSG stands for constructive solid geometry. Like I said above if you want to know how to convert your brushes into static meshes please see my unreal Engine 4 playlist. The tutorial is really easy and frees up a lot of resources making your game run smoother and have more frames per second. The point of this post wasn't to promote my channel it was just to make people aware of how costly BSP brushes can be on the processor if you wasn't aware. Thanks for this video by the way and congrats on having a great channel. I have been deeply inspired by your channel to create quality content myself. Thanks for this bro! Keep up the great work and keep them videos coming and I'll keep watching them. Peace be upon you my friend! Virtual Worlds. =)

[@DxBlack]

WorldOf should not have hearted this, mostly because its just trying to steal views from his channel, and secondly because _he covers changing BSP to Statics in parts of his series so you're wasting you breath..._

[@drillcream]

In case you are unaware, it's bad etiquette to mention your own channel content on videos of the same context. I understand you'd like views but let it be organic, gain good reputation and people return because of great content like WoLD

[@VirtualWorlds]

@@DxBlack maybe he hearted this because she knows I wasn't trying to steal views that may be important people that BSP cuts quite a few of them can have a drastic influence on performance. Enough said!

[@VirtualWorlds]

I meant he

[@STUDIO7Collectibles]

This is bsp THIS IS SPARTA!

[@swat37]

yes

[@monkeyrobotsinc.9875]

Wowowowowoooowww!

[@DetectiveJones]

Meanwhile I have this terrible practice of making eeeeverything of BSP's...Even the models at the end, I'll just convert everything into a mesh.