I’m currently working on a exploration type of game using the terrain editor to create the map and this map is going to be decently large so I want to fully optimise.
I know the basic advice of hollowing out terrain and from what I’ve heard filling in terrain if the general shape is complex.
But some of my questions couldn’t be answered such as:
- What terrain material is most optimal? (even if the difference is little)
- How many voxels is too much? (for each different device)
- Is it better to use water terrain or somehow make my own water system?
- What’s the best thickness for terrain?
Explaining questions:
- For example, on the outer side of the terrain is it better to paint it a material like sand or rock?
Also is there a most optimised material texture? Instead of sand would snow be better because there’s only 1 type of texture compared to the sand where there’s 2 types.
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How many voxels is too much for mobile compared to a low end pc to a high end pc?
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I’ve notice when using large amounts of water terrain it significantly increases voxel count plus I’m sure the best way to add it is in a cube shape because when I use the brush this happens in other terrain:
It would also be a struggle to take out chunks of useless water.
So if I were to make my own water system is it possible to have the exact behaviour of water terrain? Plus how would I even go in making the waves??
- Currently I use sculpt on a brush size of 3, is a different size better and why?
I know I might be overreacting with some of theses questions but it keeps bothering me, I’m just obsessed with optimisation and I cant find the exact answers to my questions.
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I think the first step to optimizing big terrains and maps in general is using streaming enabled. It loads and unloads terrain and parts when moving to / from them. I do not think hollowing out the terrain will make you gain any performance probably the opposite but as I have heard sand is the most performant so maybe paint the bottom with sand. Yes the thickness does matter but it would depend on the game. Please don’t make your own water roblox water is already really optimized and doing it would be really time consuming without much benefit. In general not
a lot is in your hands when making optimized terrain only drastic thing you can do is enabled streaming enabled.
I forgot to mention I had streaming enabled on. Do you possibly remember where you’ve heard that sand is the most optimal and why?
My game is based on exploration so I chose a thickness of 3 which I believe is enough to stop any player or camera clipping while keeping voxel counts low but what would you recommend?
Also would water still be a good choice if I’m using millions of voxels of it? I’m not sure how much exactly but definitely above 1 million and below 10.
Thanks for advice.
Don’t remember where I heard that sand is the most performant but a lot of sources do say that sand is one of the more performant ones. Not to be mean at all but I think you need to realize that not all of the terrain will be loaded at once with streaming enabled the biggest problem with large terrains would be probably the memory usage but still its not too bad. I think I would keep the thickness of 3 or 2.
Noo I don’t want or need all the terrain to be loaded at once, my bad for any miscommunication, considering memory usage is one of the biggest problems would default terrain water still be a good choice if I’m using millions of voxels of it?
I think the count will be above 1 million and below 10 million.
Yeah I am not saying that you want or need to
Yes terrain water would still be your best bet
