Posted by Shamus on August 31st, 2009

Warning: The following 2,400 words attempt to take very complex 3D rendering problems and reduce them to simple language so that you can peer into the polygon-based sausage factory that is the videogame industry. I’m not sure if I pulled it off.

Yesterday I promised a writeup on “BSP technology”. Except, I was using BSP the sloppy way to mean “general level-optimizing type stuff”, which is not really correct. BSP is a technique of level optimization. What I should have said is “how BSP technology is being marginalized in favor of other optimization techniques”. BSP stands for “Binary Space Partitioning”, which is obtuse programmer talk for “dividing space in two”. We love doing that because it lets us pretend our dull technical skills are a potent form of arcane magic. It’s the same reason we “launch applications” instead of just “running programs” like you simple folk.