Smooth Terrain Progression

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ThePentiumGuy

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Hey,
In my game, to save memory - I use terrain progression... meaning as you get close to the terrain, you can see more of it.

IMO this looks very artificial, is there any way i can change the LOD (Level of Detail) as I go through the terrain? That would really help,

Thanks
-The Pentium Guy
 
ThePentiumGuy said:
Hey,
In my game, to save memory - I use terrain progression... meaning as you get close to the terrain, you can see more of it.

IMO this looks very artificial, is there any way i can change the LOD (Level of Detail) as I go through the terrain? That would really help,

Thanks
-The Pentium Guy
Click to expand...

Most games have a sphere of influence around the player and certain things are displayed depending on how far away that player is from these objects. Grass and other static flare is usually a very small sphere, while players and bullets are almost always displayed (in FPS's). The best example of flare being used in a game so far is Tribes Vengeance.

You just gotta have the game only draw stuff that is "of priority". So you have to set up a priority system and a state system that allows changes to the priority. Every priority of objects would have a specific sphere of influence.

You might also wanna look up fog, that can lower teh FPS like crazy if done correctly.
 
Well, if I could edit it, I would say it would raise the FPS. ;)

It was a typo....after writing 2 paragraphs about applied 3D graphics theory, you start to lose your mind. ;)

You should definitely make it so that people can CHANGE the fog in the game though, because some people don't like fog, whereas I enjoy a little just to spice things up.
 
DOH! :-p even I read your post incorrectly o_O.
My real question was "Hmm, well i'm not sure about Fog Raising the FPS.. but it would certainly make the progression a LOT smoother :D"

Why would it raise the FPS? It's more particles/vertices(?) to render.
 
ThePentiumGuy said:
DOH! :-p even I read your post incorrectly o_O.
My real question was "Hmm, well i'm not sure about Fog Raising the FPS.. but it would certainly make the progression a LOT smoother :D"

Why would it raise the FPS? It's more particles/vertices(?) to render.
Click to expand...
It can allow you (the programmer), to reduce the visible distance further, thus reducing the amount of poly's needing to be displayed. This is used in a lot of games to actually increase the FPS because a lot less really needs to be drawn. It really all depends on how much stuff you have in the "world space" at once. If your game is fairly basic, you still will want to use fog to make it seem less fake as stuff "dissapears". Some games don't need to make stuff dissapear though...so in that case fog would decrease the FPS.
 
Just as a matter of example... Turok used this technique... the fog hid alot from the scene, making it unnecessary to draw what was behind it.

I think they used billboard fog however ... and not particles... you would need alot indeed to cover up some stuff if you'd go with particles.... and that perhaps wouldn't help the FPS rate at all.
 
Yep, it really depends on example. For example (no pun intended), outdoor games that have huge rolling hills NEED fog out of necessity. If they don't have it, they will not be able to have a very large world to move around in. ;)

For inside type games, you don't need fog at all. The walls hide the rest of the level from you...so there is no reason to waste FPS on fog. It all depends upon what you want to do.
 
ThePentiumGuy said:
Nice - It worked! I get a bit more FPS(+4 or 5)... I also made the camera "lower" so that you dont see the entire terrain at once :).
Click to expand...

Yep, I am surprised I forgot camera manipulation. Changing the camera can help a lot too....the less stuff the game can see...the better. ;)
 
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