P-152: Virtual World Concept Update 124: Planet-sized Terrain: Part 3

I have come up with a tentative solution to this problem.

The idea is to use lock the planets position at the extent of the visible distance, so, 10,000 units. Then the planet is simply scaled, as I described in my previous post, so that it appears to be the same size as it would be if it was much further away.

When the scale reaches 10,000, it is also locked, so that it doesn’t exceed the view distance. I can then maintain a 64-bit radius value for the planet in my own code, and use that to subdivide the planet as the player gets close, gradually adding more and more detail until it is rendered with max detail at ground level.

I have added the scaling code, and I am now working on finishing the concept for this idea. I am having a lot of difficulty in conceptually solving this problem, and I am also having issues with terrain textures and subdivisions based on LOD’s not working properly. Solving this issue will be a major step forward though, and should basically allow unlimited sized terrains to be created.