Hi to all, I''m writing a 3D engine based on OpenGL. Some guys told me that BSP Trees aren''t useful anymore because they tend to be optimal only with low-detailed worlds. So my question is: Do I really need to implement BSP Trees in my engine or can I simply trust the hardware z-buffer ? Is it possible to write a portal engine without using BSPs? Thanx in advance.

Well whoever this ''some guy'' was he talks utter nonsense.

BSP trees can still be very useful, in fact they are very good for HIGH detailed indoor worlds if used in conjunction with a potential visibility set.
Perhaps this ''some guy'' was refering to the fact that BSP trees are no longer needed for back to front rendering because of Hardware Z buffers and this is certainly true. BUT BSP tree have many MANY other benefits that CAN make them faster than ANY other rendering technique.
They can be used for Potential Visibility Sets anf for perform VERY fast line of sight determinations. In fact with a BSP tree you can check for line of sight between two points without having to check a SINGLE polygon.
Having seem games Like Quake3 and others based on that engine, i would certainly say Yes, BSPs are still VERY useful

If you are only using the BSP for Back to Front rendering the yeah you can just leave it tot he z buffer. In my engine i use a BSp and a Z Buffer because i only use the BSp to calculate what polygons are visibly each frame which is VERy fast.

Yes you can write portal engines without BSPs. They are two totally seperate techniques for rendering a scene.
Portal are usually not as FAST as BSP engines with PVS but are more flexible.

BSP trees are well worth your time.
They are not just used for determining what polys are visible (that is the main use), you can also use them for collition detection. Go find yourself a good tutorial on Solid BSP trees. You can save alot of cycles with them.

BSP is useless?? ohhh... this means war...

The primary use of BSP trees in games, particular that of leafy BSP trees, is *not* for polygon sorting, it is for the calculation and storing of PVS, or Potentially Visible Set. No matter how fast hardware Z-buffer gets, ANY card will run around 5 fps if you simply throw all polygons of your level to the hardware, no hardware is fast enough to render *all* polygons of any average sized level for every frame.

The biggest advantage PVS gets you is that instead of drawing all polygons, you only draw those that can potentially been seen from the current view point, this means for every frame, instead of drawing the 10,000 polygons that make up your level, you only draw around, say, 300 polygons for the visible scene.

Another big advantage of BSP trees is they provide lighting-fast collsion detection.

I see leafy BSP trees, combined with PVS to be the primary data structure used in Quake/Unreal games for sometime to come...

Speaking of BSP trees: does anybody know of a good tutorial on them? I''ve been searching for weeks with zero results (allright, I found one or two documents on the subject, but to understand them I need to know how to create and use a bsp tree).

Thanks a lot, you saved my life. Or at least, you saved my game engine, which is almost the same :-)