There is a new version but that one had connection issues which have suppossed to be sorted by now but the old one works good now, you have to connect with empty folders to synch up faster then upload stuff.

After settling in with our remote dev environment we now begin LODding from start_pos1.

The approach taken here is to seek the means to have the engine 'cruise along' rather than 'lag a long' and despite the many advices regarding clip_far and visible/invisible, no test conducted by me have ever bested LOD loading.

Clipping and visiblity management for fustrum culling still holds on to resources better saved for other aspects of dev work and can lead to massive frame rate drops if ones approach to dev work is still centered around prototyping, when employing alphas in conjunction with default scene management measures.

LODding is a must for this engine in order to attain freedom to develop. Of course this means a larger file footprint (owing to the extra LOD models) but performance is exactly what can be expected, a much needed measuring tool.


Here we see the access to the mountain entry area and 'start_pos1' where 3 model segments have been removed in order to use as reference for the initial LOD modelling.


The segments


and here, all the sections of the removed segment have been modelled to stage2 LOD


The final LOD stage will be even more detailed.

The idea is that at any stage, only what the camera sees will ever be loaded up affording resources for effects and functions to run.

Looks promising!
At the moment, you don't seem to care about the textures.
I prefer to include tiled textures from the beginning, at least placeholders, to see the tiling.
I use already textured model pieces and stitch them together to avoid seams, because I think it is less work with the uv-mapping.
But, it depends on the landscapes, maybe, your environment won't take profit from my method. I don't know.

Keep up the work!

I wasnt aware this project was still going, if it was I could probably do some small work for it.

it is still going, expect new screenies soonish lol

yup, more screenies soonish and I'll ask the team to look at your offer lostclimate.

@papenheimer, yes, sorry about the texture mess right now but at that time it wasnt important, now that we are building lod stages for the views seen above we need to sort textures out to a more acceptable showcase standard.
Thanks for the tiling hint, hadnt thought about that at all

I was thinking that each sub-level area will have an individual detail and tiling map first before looking at shaders to finish the 'look', if any and use I use your texture system too .

I havnt attempted stiching yet but we have two good scripters who could handle any difficulty I may encounter I am thinking and would welcome any directions in the process.

At the moment, I am holding up the dev process as I havnt completed the lodding stages yet but will get onto it following the required xmass visits etc.
Hopefully a detailed progress post will follow shortly after that.

been working on this guy for a couple of days now, please bear in mind tis my third attempt at character modeling. my wife says the legs are crap so they need a bit more done to them, do you guys like the look of it so far?

well the forearms and legs really lack definition, look up pictures of male muscle structure to get an ide of what to make them look like. otherwise, it looks good.

Hey jigalypuff, you're wife is right but the rest is really nice.

looks a bit better now i reckon, what do ya think?