TSE - managing huge scenes with paging terrain
by Laurence Grant · in Torque Game Engine · 03/14/2006 (9:21 am) · 3 replies
I don't want to be redundant, and although I posted something similar in the TSE technical questions post, I should have separated the post so things aren't overlooked by people only interested in specific areas, so this is a new thread for some terrain/scene specific questions.
With a paging terrain, I'm not going to want to load levels, as levels are more optimized to small areas. Instead I'll want hundreds of areas each being equivalent to a full blown level if you will. However, unlike traditional levels that take time to load, with a paging terrain, you want to seamlessly travel across the terrain and into different cities without interruption or loads, right? You also want to enter buildings with very complex details, but having hundreds, even thousands of buildings, each with their own detailed layouts, would prove too large to preload all at once.
Therefore, what provisions are in TSE for handling this? Preferably I would like to hear from the TSE development team on this. I hope they've thought about this and added specific methods for managing this? If you're a developer using the TSE engine and have experienced this, please feel free to comment too, I'm not meaning to restrict the thread just to the TSE development team.
With a paging terrain, I'm not going to want to load levels, as levels are more optimized to small areas. Instead I'll want hundreds of areas each being equivalent to a full blown level if you will. However, unlike traditional levels that take time to load, with a paging terrain, you want to seamlessly travel across the terrain and into different cities without interruption or loads, right? You also want to enter buildings with very complex details, but having hundreds, even thousands of buildings, each with their own detailed layouts, would prove too large to preload all at once.
Therefore, what provisions are in TSE for handling this? Preferably I would like to hear from the TSE development team on this. I hope they've thought about this and added specific methods for managing this? If you're a developer using the TSE engine and have experienced this, please feel free to comment too, I'm not meaning to restrict the thread just to the TSE development team.
Torque 3D Owner Stephen Zepp
It's not that it's difficult (all of the mechanics are there, and even layed out for you in how the Atlas terrain module does it's paging), it's just not implemented specifically for a set of needs, since those needs will change from project to project.