P-152: Virtual World Concept Update 52: Chunked Levels of Detail Using Quad Trees Part 20

I have not spent a huge amount of time on this project this week, due to the work I have been doing on P136. However I have done some research into the final terrain paging and chunked level of detail issues that I have been having, and on the terrain resolution and performance.

There does seem to be a flaw in the algorithm that I am using for the terrain system. I believed originally that increasing the resolution of the terrain would fix the paging issues, by increasing the density of the terrain (and therefore reducing the size of the nodes).

This is because the issue is, I believe, caused by the node boundaries not being included in the subdivisions. I am only including the closest node in the search at the highest levels, so if the player is standing near a node boundary, the nodes across that boundary will not be subdivided.

To fix this, I will have to abandon the idea of searching though only the closest node at the highest tiers, and adopt a distance based system for all nodes, similiar to what I do for the lowest nodes.

If a node is within a certain distance of the player, it will be subdivided, regardless of how many nodes from that tier are already being subdivided. I think this concept should work, but it could take some time to implement and test it.

In addition to the issues with terrain paging, I have noticed problem with performance  at higher terrain resolution levels. As well as taking a long time to generate the terrain, the framerate is quite low, even at moderate detail levels. It is possible that this issue will be fixed when I fix the terrain paging issues, however.