Very well, I started with openGL a few weeks ago, and I''m beginning to understand the basics of the engine. I have read in a few articles that at some point you might want to write you own BSP or octree (or something like that) to sort the polygons for drawing. OpenGL seems to be quite inefficient for this (so I read). I don''t know if Octree and BSP fall in the same category, but they seem to be mentioned together. My question is how important is such an algorithm? Do I have to seriously think about making one (from my point of view... I just started out)? And how difficult is making one? At which point does it become more important? If so, are there any NON-TECHNICAL articles about these concepts, and their differences (Octree vs BSP)? Thank you ______________________________ If idiots could fly, I would be a space-shuttle.

BSP and Octrees are things to divide the polygons into areas, so that you only need to Render polygons that are close to the screen or in front of the screen. Octrees divides the map into 8 cubes, then it divides each of them into 8 cubes and so on. You can then use frustum culling to check wheter or not to render the polygons in a certain cube. BSP is a different technique to do this. They can also be used to other things, like Pathfinding and Collision Detection.

BSP is used in Carmacks engines, and therefore it''s a good thing to do if you''re making a FPS 3D Engine.

Do not worry about those things until you''re planing to make a Game Engine or a demo with a really big map/terrain or something.


http://www.gametutorials.com <- Go here to find tutorials and information about both (Octree and Quake III BSP)