hi, how can i texture huge landscapes as shown in e.g. 3dmark 2000 heli game. even if i use a texture size of 2048 i''ve got ~ 1px/meter when having a landscape of 2km. so how did they achieve having hightly detailed ground textures? there must be some sort of a trick...

Use more polygons?

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where is a conjunction between texture size and polygons???

i can have a single polygon with a 2048x2048 texture and i can have 3 trillion polygons using a 8x8 texture...

currently i have got a landscape with a single texture put over it. this is the fastest and easiest way to create a textured landscape, but the downside is that with increasing size of the landscape the texture detail becomes lower. to keep the texture detail high i''d have to use high res textures and i cant waste ~16mb of texture space only on the landscape.

the other possibility would be that i''d have the landscape divided into different parts according to the texture. say one model part for the grass texture, one for stone etc.
spliting up the landscape would allow higher detail, but it''s a lot of work as you have to make different parts out of the landscape model and the use of seamless tileable textures is necessary.

there has to be another solution/trick to make landscape with highly detailed textures, but as few work as possible.

use only 4 or 5 smallish, yet basic textures representing different types of terrain, then change the texture based on height and slope.
also, use detail textures.

-eldee
;another space monkey;
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I think when you ask about tricks, you havn''t to consider that tricks come in two flavours.

1. This trick makes the job go a lot faster, but it DOES compromise speed/style/memory/flexibility.

2. This trick makes the impossible seem possible, but it DOES compromise code simplicity, making it harder to implement.


I say this because you''ve answered your question already. Use a tiling system that dynamically creates the required tiles when it first starts running and then pastes them together through a tesselation of your hieghfield or whatnot - there is a really good chapter in Game Programming Gems 2 called ''Simplified terrain using interlocking tiles''.

The other sollution is what you have already, use a single texture, but that falls into ''trick flavour #1'' which sacrifices something so that you can quickly get your texture on the screen.

Another sollution is that if your terrain is so large and you can''t travel over it that fast, maybe you can break the terrain up into pieces and dynamically load it as the viewer moves around, but .. that might not work since there may be no way to guarantee the camera cannot see far away or the whole map at once.

Good luck..

hmmm...unfortunately i can''t make a dynamic terrain because i''m using a pre-made engine and i''m not a programmer. i wish i could make something creating tiles on it own, but if using it i had to do it all by hand in my 3d app => hell a lot of work

currently i''m doing what eldee said, but in my 3d app and then rendering to a single texture. later on i add a detail texture in the engine. still i''m not quiet content with the result.

i think the way i''m doing it is the best...though if anyone can think of another possibility or has got some tips i''d really appreciate it.