VBSP

VBSP is the tool that compiles a raw VMF file into the Binary Space Partition format. It is generally followed by VVIS and VRAD.

VBSP does:

• convert brushes to polygons
• generate visleaves
• generate detail props
• swallow most internal entities into the world
• replace specular materials with patched versions that link to the nearest cubemap
• embed the entity block

While the resulting BSP file can be played directly it has no visibility control (poor performance) and no lighting.

Bug:In non-L4D branch games, .mdl files that have the IDST1 header will fail to load for VBSP, see VRAD's bugs.  [todo tested in ?]

Launch options

Syntax

vbsp [options...] vmf_file

For example:

"Half-Life 2\bin\vbsp.exe" -onlyents sdk_trainstation_01

This will re-embed the entity block without affecting the world.

Common options

Note:-onlyents and -keepstalezip will mark the map as stale by embedding the file stale.txt into the BSP. Loading stale maps in the engine will cause a "This map is not final!!" warning message in the console.

-v

-verbose

Turn on verbose output (also shows more command-line options). Use without any other parameters.

-onlyents

Only import the entities from the VMF. Brushes and internal entities are not modified. Conserves existing lighting data.

-onlyprops

Only update static and detail props (i.e. the internal entities). Does not generate a .prt file, making VVIS fail!

-glview

Writes glview data to the VMF's directory. -tmpout will cause the files will be written to \tmp instead.

-nodetail

Removes func_detail brushes. The geometry left over is what affects visibility.

-nowater

Get rid of water brushes.

-low

Run as an idle-priority process.

-vproject <directory>

Override the VPROJECT environment variable.

-game <directory>

Specify the folder of the gameinfo.txt file

-embed <directory>

Embed the contents of <directory> in the packfile

Advanced options

-novconfig

Don't bring up graphical UI on vproject errors.

-threads

Control the number of threads vbsp uses (defaults to the # of processors (times 2 for Hypertreading/SMT CPU's) on your machine).

-verboseentities

If -v is on, this disables verbose output for submodels.

-noweld

Don't join face vertexes together.

-nocsg

Don't chop out intersecting brush areas.

-noshare

Emit unique face edges instead of sharing them.

-notjunc

Don't fixup t-junctions.

-noopt

By default, vbsp removes the 'outer shell' of the map, which are all the faces you can't see because you can never get outside the map. -noopt disables this behavior.

-noprune

Don't prune neighboring solid nodes.

-nomerge

Don't merge together chopped faces on nodes.

-nomergewater

Don't merge together chopped faces on water.

-nosubdiv

Don't subdivide faces for lightmapping.

-micro <#>

vbsp will warn when brushes are output with a volume less than this number (default: 1.0).

-fulldetail

Mark all detail geometry as normal geometry (so all detail geometry will affect visibility).

-leaktest

Stop processing the map if a leak is detected. Whether or not this flag is set, a leak file will be written out at <vmf filename>.lin, and it can be imported into Hammer.

-bumpall

Force all surfaces to be bump mapped.

-snapaxial

Snap axial planes to integer coordinates.

-block # #

Control the grid size mins that vbsp chops the level on.

-blocks # # # #

Enter the mins and maxs for the grid size vbsp uses.

-dumpstaticprops

Dump static props to staticprop*.txt

-dumpcollide

Write files with collision info.

-luxelscale #

Scale all lightmaps by this amount (default: 1.0).

-lightifmissing

Force lightmaps to be generated for all surfaces even if they don't need lightmaps.

-localphysx

Todo: Currently unknown.

-keepstalezip

Keep the BSP's zip files intact but regenerate everything else.

-replacematerials

Substitute materials according to materialsub.txt in content\maps

-FullMinidumps

Write large minidumps on crash.

Template:CSGO add

Merges prop_statics together to form one static prop. This is a way to keep the number of static props present in a map down. See scripts/hammer/spcombinerules/spcombinerules.txt for examples of how it works.

Template:CSGO add

Todo: Find out what this does. Valve usually has this set along with -StaticPropCombine.

Template:CSGO add

Confirm:Minimum amount of grouped up static props needed to start combining them together? Valve had this set to 3 for the new Dust 2.

Nonfunctional Options

-linuxdata

Force it to write physics data for linux multiplayer servers. ( It will automatically write this data if it finds certain entities like info_player_terrorist, info_player_deathmatch, info_player_teamspawn, info_player_axis, or info_player_coop. )

-nolinuxdata

Force it to not write physics data for linux multiplayer servers, even if there are multiplayer entities in the map.

-virtualdispphysics

Use virtual (not precomputed) displacement collision models

-xbox

Enable mandatory Xbox 1 optimisation.

Console output

Todo: Add description about every output (WriteBSP, other)

See also

• Map Compiling Theory
• Decompiling Maps