I bring thee not simple rearrangements, but a whole new world of possibilities,,,

[Zeph]

Why can't you do baked textures for levels which you just layer shadows from non-bsp geometry onto?

It takes more memory, but it's cheap on runtime. But there's a reason why only Unreal 3 is pretty much the only major engine still using it. It sucks and there are tons of better methods that move to a more accurate and real time method.

[Not Inferno]

Could one do weather shit like rain or snow in this?

Easily. You can even have the rain fade in as clouds form over head and the lighting of the map dims to a greyish blue. Like in real life.

Why can't you do baked textures for levels which you just layer shadows from non-bsp geometry onto?

I could do that, and I'm considering having lightmaps as an option in the engine. That's not a priority right now though.

I'm guessing it's because that type of shadow can't cast onto dynamic models (i.e. the weapon in your hand) except as a primitive form of ambient lighting change around the player, which is more of a trigger than the actual shadow. RAGE did that, and it felt very 2003 in what should have been a cutting-edge engine. It also precludes the use of a convincing day-night cycle in a game, if that's something you want to add.

Yeah the lighting model I'm using is very expensive on the GPU but is completely dynamic and can create true day night cycles. The values related are in the bsp tag:

sunMapRadius<float> //Radius of the area that you want lit (IE the entire radius of hagemehigh or the island part of death island) anything outside this radius will just be normal brightness.
sunRotation<float x, float y> //Position of the sun 0,90 would be straight down from the sky.
sunRotationAnimation<float x, float y> //Amount the sun should move every tick

sunLightColor<float r, float g, float b>
sunShadowColor<float r, float g, float b>

It takes more memory, but it's cheap on runtime. But there's a reason why only Unreal 3 is pretty much the only major engine still using it. It sucks and there are tons of better methods that move to a more accurate and real time method.

Light mapping has it's place. In Unreal Tournament 3 I can see why they used it. It works great in that game and costs little on the GPU. I just decided not to use that kind of lighting. It's easier on the artist to use CSM I think. Less dicking around with lightmaps.