P-152: Virtual World Concept Update 164: Planet-sized Terrain: Part 43

by PhoenixGames on Aug.28, 2016, under Astral Realms, P-0, Software and Games, Spiritus Astrum

I have uncovered a major issue with the current system.

The spherical terrain code basically works, but I am having serious problems moving the rendered nodes so that they are returned to the origin along with the player as part of the floating origin system.

I cannot simply move the terrain object itself, since the rendered node positions would then render out of the terrain objects bounds, and the collision, texturing, and subdivision code would then not work.

I need to find a way to adjust the position of the nodes correctly from code.

I am currently working on factoring the section of the code where the 64-bit to 32-bit translation is being done, since I believe that is where the issue is. I am trying to remove the term in the algorithm that I think is causing the issue (the player position) and replace it with another term that doesn’t change as the player moves (such as the planets radius, or similar).

I believe that the main work of the spherical terrain is correct, ie, the terrain is “paging” in new data as the player moves. It is difficult to tell at the moment because there is no real detail on the terrain surface yet, but I think it is safe to assume that this is working for the moment.

I have tried various methods of moving the terrain nodes to compensate for the players movement, but so far, none have worked. This problem seems to be much more serious that I realised.