P-152: Virtual World Concept Update 137: Planet-sized Terrain: Part 16

I think I am starting to see an end in sight for the second milestone of this project.

The objectives that I have left to accomplish are:

1. Fully Implement and Verify the Planet scale
2. Reimplement/fix player collision
3. Additional Levels of Detail for short view distances
4. Additional Levels of Detail and support for long view distances, until the planet is out of view
5. Collision between non-player objects and the terrain
6. Fix the 3D Gravity code (T3D applies gravity on the negative Z axis only by default)
7. Reimplement First-Person terrain rendering optimisations

I am hoping that these objectives should take no more than a few weeks to implement.

I believe I have already achieved the first objective, although some more testing may be necessary.

I am currently working on creating additional LOD’s for short view distances. My intention is basically to first subdivide the nodes from the 64-bit world space values to 32-bit values, and cull any nodes outside of the 10k range, this is currently working. I now need to further subdivide the nodes that are left to produce a smooth terrain that looks realistic and aesthetically pleasing. This may involve duplicating the existing subdivision code.

The below image is taken at a 45 degree angle between two points on the sphere, and further verifies that the terrain is at the correct scale.