Horde3D

Hello,

I've never done much research for terrain systems so I have no clue about the types of terrain systems. I've previously worked with TGEA, torque game engine advanced and thier terrain system uses a grid that are square. I've noticed that screenshots and videos of other engines like GameBryo have a simular looking terrain with small triangles like the Horde3D Screenshot.

What type of terrain system is it that is available with Horde3D? Is there a technical term or name for them when they consist of tiny triangles as opposed to squares?

Hope this makes sense.
Chris

Graphics cards are made for rendering triangles (when you draw a square, you're actually just drawing two triangles), so as far as I know, all real-time terrain systems use triangles for rendering.

Can you tell me some more about TGEA's terrain system?

Horde's terrain system takes in a height-map (a big black/grey/white bitmap) which is then turned into a big model made up of triangles. Several different versions of this model are made with more/less detail, so distant parts of the terrain can use the low-detail versions and closer areas can use the high-detail ones. I think this is sometimes called "chunked lod".

Another technique is voxel rendering used for exampel in the old comanche games by novalogic.