I love terrain. I mean I really love generated terrain. I have no idea why – I’ve always been interested in it since I saw Outrun in the arcades (waaaay back) with its undulating roads. This was quite a novelty for me as all the computer generated roads up until then had been flat (pitstop, pitstop II, etc – and itf you have no idea what I’m on about then either you are too young or you never owned a C64).<\/p>\n

Anyway, I remember seeing Zarch on an Archimedes at when I was at school (it was brand new and was the pride of our Computer Studies class – we only had BBC’s then!) and being blown away.<\/p>\n

Anyway, every since then I have been into terrain and have implemented loads of versions (brute force, ROAM based, etc) in C, C++, Java, C# using Windows API, OpenGL, DirectX and now XNA.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I have a WIP version http:\/\/imagineear.com\/pharmacy\/<\/a> almost ready for first release of my Zarch-inspired terrain engine.<\/p>\n

Theres a couple of screenshots at the end..<\/p>\n

Features so far:
\nPatch-work looking (not smooth)
\nCan be randomly generated or loaded from heightmap
\nTerrain endlessly repeats – by this I mean that you can move the camera forwards infinately and the terrain wraps round.
\nTerrain split up into patches (only patches that fall into visible frustrum are rendered – pretty much)
\nScreenshots can be taken (press the space bar)<\/p>\n

Its currently Windows only BUT the Windows only part is the screenshot stuff which could be removed if you want 360 support. (Note – I don’t have – and don’t plan on getting a 360 for the forseeable future – so don’t really care about 360 development.)<\/p>\n

An early beta will be available shortly (maybe with source code if any interest).<\/p>\n

Anyway, some screenshots:<\/p>\n

Looking down from up high<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n

Looking across the landscape<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n

Looking across the landscape (with patch lines)<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love terrain. I mean I really love generated terrain. I have no idea why – I’ve always been interested in it since I saw Outrun in the arcades (waaaay back) with its undulating roads. This was quite a novelty … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andyqua.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andyqua.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andyqua.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andyqua.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andyqua.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.andyqua.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andyqua.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andyqua.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andyqua.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}