Landscape optimisation

Development World Creation
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1

Hi there! English isn’t my native language, so be patient with me please :slight_smile:

I need help with landscape optimisation workflows. We are making 3rd person mmo project - large forests, fields ( a lot of foliage, etc), a lot of static meshes. Landscape tiles are generated from height maps throug world comp tiled landscape option. The size of one tile aprox 300mm there are 120 tiles in total. There are from 8-20 textures applied through masks on 1 tile ( depends on territory specs - desrt, forest, etc)
What approach i should use to optimise landscape? I have some options but dont know what would be wiser to choose

  1. Increase the amount of lvls by subdividing height map immages to 4 pieces ( 4 lvls), parameters will be - 4x253 ( 63, 2x2, 2x2). A lot of work with image preparations. etc - it will be ~480 lvls

  2. One lvl - 1x505 ( 63, 2x2, 4x4). - 120lvl in total

As i know, if the player wouldn’t be seeing distant objects\landscapes, then drawcalls count will be the same in this both setups, and the far objects are partialy blocked by near trees\object -also reduses the draw calls count.
How much will performance increase through lvl streaming of smaller tiles ( less amount of territory\statics\etc) in this situation.

Thx in advance for any help )

2

Or maybe as long as i stick with the parameters describes in Landscape Technical Guide, the difference in my case won’t be that big that increasing the workload 4 times will be wise?

3

500ish seems like the most reasonable tile size to me.

Far tiles should be replaced by meshes of low complexity, that represent distant landscape together with prominent objects. Heightfield should not be rendered on these.

4

Thx for help, then i’ll stick with 505 variant. But what do you mean by replacing distant tiles+meshes. I thought that :

  1. Landsacpe LOD’s are controlling distant landscapes optimisation, in my case i’m having 16 components with 2 sections each - so basicly a lot of lod steppings.
  2. world comp lvl straming controlling the “visibility” of tiles thet are out of 9 tiles workflow ( when loaded tile with player and 8 surrounding)
  3. By means of simplygon i’m generating LODs for distant meshes.
    I thought to use this workflow, or am i missing something here?