Terrain stitching

[saindd]

Does T3D support terrain stitching? How many terrain objects can exist in a scene?

[Duion]

Not by default, but someone is working on it. Terrains you can have multiple.

[saindd]

I'm working on some background mountains, so, what is less expensive for the T3D engine? Using low poly mesh for the background mountains, or creating a terrain from the heightmap? In Unity, for example, it's the mesh. UDK, however, is the heightmap.

[LukasPJ]

Sounds like something I'd solve using a skybox

[saindd]

Skyboxes are bad if you want more realism in the background mountain. Or a semi-far mountain:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sYyt-puk9a4/maxresdefault.jpg

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/d7wcGh8EmiU/maxresdefault.jpg

http://i1-games.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/-Battlefield-Bad-Company-2-Squad-Deathmatch-Gameplay-Walkthrough-Trailer_5.jpg

[Duion]

You can use two terrains, one for the inside and a big one for the outside.

[chriscalef]

@Duion: I've been thinking about doing that for OpenSimEarth but haven't gotten around to it - I'd love to have a high res local terrain and then one or even two layers of larger and less detailed terrain extending farther away.

One question though - have you done this, and do you have an easy solution for the border between the two LODs? I'm thinking you would have to match the edge of the higher resolution terrain to the edge of the low res terrain, but you'd need to smooth it back for some distance. Haven't gone there yet, just wondering if there are easy tools or methods available for that.

[Duion]

I thought the bigger terrain is so much in the background so you can never reach it, just for decoration, then you don't have to worry about the border. There is no proper way of stitching them together in the default version of Torque.

But why not make a huge terrain for everything? The terrain cells LOD themselves anyway in the distance. You could make a 8kmx8km terrain with square size 2 and increased LODing of terrain cells, I think this will not produce much more polys.