When I compile my BSP in tool, it gives me the warning that it found "nearly coplanar" surfaces, but it still compiles. I was wondering, does this make any real difference ingame? I tried to fix it in 3ds max but I cant get them to be normal, and when I click the "make planar" button it screws up that part of the geometry...

Also, when im looking around in sapien and ingame, certain faces in the BSP disappear if i look at them from the wrong angle, which makes it look really screwy, is this a result of the coplanar faces and how do i fix it?

if you're going to use make planer it would be better to combine them instead. that is essentially what the error is about anyway. it wont really hurt anything and in some cases there's nothing you can do about it. just mess with the verts a little to get some variation. otherwise ignore them.

Don't ever ignore them. They are warnings for a reason. They create phantom bsp and can mess with your lightmaps. Just fix them by making those surfaces perfectly planar or move a vert around so the faces are not as nearly planar. It shouldn't take too long to fix and they are worth the time.

i only said ignore them because in certain cases they're in places you can't fix, or rather, don't want to. like on a flat wall occasionally you will have coplaners within a single quad. if you can't optimize the area, and moving the verts will cause distortion of the surface then what? it's not frequent and most of the time they should/can be fixed.

You can always fix them and where are you getting optimizing from? Optmization has nothing to do with this warning. And about the distortion, you can move the vert .1 unit in max and you will never see the difference ingame.

By phantom BSP do you mean it disappears like I said in the first post? It happens mostly around the areas with the coplanar problems.... I tried combining the faces, but it wrecked the bitmaps in some places. Ill have to try moving the vertexes then...

Edit: I fixed all of the nearly coplanar surfaces but the BSP still stuffs up in the same place, anyone know why this might be?
Edited by Gravemind on Feb 11, 2010 at 06:23 AM

combining a lot of smaller polies into fewer larger polies. if you do this in an area with a lot of coplaners close together, you will get rid of them. OP, the bitmaps will need UV'ed again.

why are coplaners an error anyway?

If you're making smaller polies to fewer larger polies, that would be change the map for the dumbest reason. Just fix the warning properly. These are warnings because they create phantom bsp which can also cause lightmap errors.

No, phantom BSP is BSP geometry that is invisible, but still collides, so you can shoot across the map, and if there's a phantom BSP in the way, the bullet will hit it. You can drive over it too, and it collides with players as well. And, it's a real pain in the ass to remove once it's in there, it's best to just fix the coplanars now so you don't have to deal with the phantom bsp later.

Yea I fixed all the coplanars, my problem is that in some places, the faces in the BSP go invisible when i look straight at them. I thought this was because of the coplanars because they were in the same area, but it still happens, even after i have fixed all the coplanars.

That's because you have a lot of polies, and you either need to portal the map or lower the polygon count.

I was gonna do the portals when all the glitches were fixed, but I guess ill have to put them in to fix the last one (for now).

I guess that probably is the problem, seeing as it happens in the higher poly areas

Edit: I boxed off an area with some exact portals and its not glitchy anymore, thanks.
Ill put in some normal portals too later
Edited by Gravemind on Feb 12, 2010 at 07:05 AM