Disappearing polygons - NutWrench, I need your help

[Devil Master]

I tried to make a level set in an old west-style ghost town. I started making a saloon and a barn (which don't use polyhedrons with many faces) and the level seemed to run fine, but when I started to make a church (that resembles the one you can see in a DNF screenshot, so its polyhedrons have MANY more faces) every sort of trouble happened. Many faces of the polyhedrons forming the church disappear randomly every time I compile the level; modifying the optimization level is useless, like moving the slider from "Minimize cuts" to "Balance tree" and viceversa trying to get a number that makes the level look good.
Even a section of the ground has disappeared for no reason and now if I try to run the level and I enter that zone, I fall into nullspace!
NutWrench, if I send you that level, can you tell me what's wrong with it, tell me how to fix it or fix it yourself so I can see how it must be done?
Thank you.

[NutWrench]

Sure! I'd be glad to take a look. smilies/images/icons/smile.gif

[Bean]

Bsp holes... sounds like gaps and polys that are connected together. Shoddy vertex manipulation could be the problem. Also, make sure you have Optimal checked when compiling.

[Maniac]

It's pretty sure that these are BSP holes. I have build a DNF like church and a ghost town like map, too. It's called DM-WildWest

[Nailed]

FYI you can send private messages for posts like these if you click on a person's profile icon. The button's down the bottom right. BTW that's definately BSP hole hell. Ah the wonders of UnrealEd.

[Theseus314]

The Duke Forever screenshots sure look sweet. Vertex manipulation of a many sided shape however isn't the best method to use to make complex brushes, Unrealed won't stop you making illigal shapes, it has no validation check, it will be happy to let you turn a 2D plane into a shape with three dimensions - very bad. There are two good ways of doing this correctly however.

1) You can create the shapes in a 3rd party 3d modelling package, generally packages such as 3DStudio Max will export your shapes as DXF's with triangular faces, these shapes are also great for further vertex manipulation within unrealed (don't do merge faces in the import).

2) You can make the shapes in the 2D editor and add irregularities with seperate vertex manipulated triangular brushes, this is the least expensive method.

Also, when the complex shape you want is complete and it compiles correctly try to select the brushes and merge faces. This can speed up the rendering a little bit but can be the cause of leaks.