Oh Nemo, regarding optimization of the landscape automaterial package, I attempted it several more times, and although I was able to reduce densities of foliage to near zero and get large terrains working with pretty decent framerates, I decided tocut my losses for now and revert back to my nice very large landscape with simple desert texturing based on slope. Again though, I don’t really know what I’m doing, so there could be some key optimization options that I wasn’t able to make because I either couldn’t locate their settings or didn’t understand how to adjust them properly. But I’ve put it on hold for now. Back to the desert for me!