werner.poetzelberger Posted March 8, 2013 Share Posted March 8, 2013 As i am testing some things with the terrain right now im curious to know, what the best approach is, to increase the resolution of terrains. My thought: I have a basic terrain 1025x1025 units which would be 1025 m when using 1 unit = 1m as suggested. If I now want to created the same 1025m x 1025m Terrain with, lets say with an edgelenght of a step which is half the lenght (double the resolution). There seem some ways how to achieve it (as far as I found out, pls correct me if there are more possibilities). a) I can make a terrain 2049 x 2049, with a stepsize of 0.5. This gives me a Terrain of 1025 x 1025 while the resolution is doubled. The height field size needs also to double up in resolution, so I would need a 2k texture the same for diffuse etc. b: I make a terrain 2049 x 2049 stepsize 1 and scale it down to 1K. (node scale) c) I can make 4 terrains 1025 x 1025 with a step size of 0.5, which is basically the same as b: but I have to work with 4 textures (1K). d) I can make 4 terrains 1025 x 1025 with a step size of 1, and scale it down to 1K. (node scale) More or less the question is, if Scaling of bigger terrains with the same step size, or bigger terrains with a smaller stepsize is the way to go. Or does this basically mean the same, and it is more the question of the workflow? How does this affect the technical parameters of the engine? Thank you. Werner Link to comment
Rob Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 Why do you need the extra resolution for your terrain? Cant you just use the detail materials to create the detailing for the 1 unit = 1m scale? Link to comment
werner.poetzelberger Posted March 11, 2013 Author Share Posted March 11, 2013 Hello Rob, when I want to increase mesh resolution, to have finer detailing in the terrain itself. The material just details the textures, which is fine and looks good. Or am I miss-understanding the concept? Happy for any advice. cheers. werner Link to comment
Rob Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 Hello Rob, when I want to increase mesh resolution, to have finer detailing in the terrain itself. The material just details the textures, which is fine and looks good. Or am I miss-understanding the concept? Happy for any advice. cheers. werner Well normally you create the fine detailing with the use of detail materials, for example rocks laying around etc What kind of details do you want to show by increasing the mesh resolution? Link to comment
werner.poetzelberger Posted March 11, 2013 Author Share Posted March 11, 2013 Hello Rob, e.g these fine changes in elevation, which are all less then a meter in height difference. What do you think? cheers.Werner Link to comment
Rob Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 Well I would try the option A you mentioned, but we are using the same scale and I found it pretty hard to get such "fine" details but the big difference is we are using a terrain of 8192x8192. I would just give it a shot! Link to comment
werner.poetzelberger Posted March 11, 2013 Author Share Posted March 11, 2013 The 8K terrain means 8192 m x 8192 m? Or are you scaling it down? No, as far as I understood, right? Can you give me an example of what you achived, if possible. cheers.Werner Link to comment
manguste Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 Werner, Yes, the difference in heights is indeed archived via the mesh itself. As for visual details, Rob is right here, they are done by applying a normal map, coarse and detail one, if necessary. More or less the question is, if Scaling of bigger terrains with the same step size, or bigger terrains with a smaller stepsize is the way to go. Or does this basically mean the same, and it is more the question of the workflow? How does this affect the technical parameters of the engine? And the answer is: bigger terrains with smaller step size. Step is just the right option to regulate terrain's size/resolution. Scaling for terrains is a definite no, since it potentially slows down rendering (increased calculations considering the terrain's size is something to be avoided) and would cause problems with physics. a) I can make a terrain 2049 x 2049, with a stepsize of 0.5. This gives me a Terrain of 1025 x 1025 while the resolution is doubled. The height field size needs also to double up in resolution, so I would need a 2k texture the same for diffuse etc. Yes, that's a completely valid approach. You double the resolution of a hight map, create 2049 x 2049 terrain and use the step of 0.5. b: I make a terrain 2049 x 2049 stepsize 1 and scale it down to 1K. (node scale)That does not make sense, since a) does the same. c) I can make 4 terrains 1025 x 1025 with a step size of 0.5, which is basically the same as b: but I have to work with 4 textures (1K).This is a valid approach, but not if you are dealing with such small terrains. So for 1 sq/km size terrain it's not reasonable. Creating a number of terrains works if the resolution is much higher - for example, to create 30 sq/km terrain. In such cases, having several 8 or 16 sq/km terrains will allow you to keep the resolution of coarse textures high enough. (Detail materials can be left out of the equation for performance reasons here, so coarse texture resolution is a crucial factor). d) I can make 4 terrains 1025 x 1025 with a step size of 1, and scale it down to 1K. (node scale)I'm sure you've guessed already that we strongly do not recommend this way :) Link to comment
werner.poetzelberger Posted March 11, 2013 Author Share Posted March 11, 2013 Hello Manguste, thank you for this answer. I am now playing with different resolutions. 8K with 0.125 gives an amazing deatail, wich probably is already too high (but looks nice). Maybe a 4K 0.25 is a neat solution. 8K with a 10 LOD is perfoming very well, but the 4K is smoother to work with. cheers werner Link to comment
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