[ODE] Re: Heightfield / Collision.

[Amund Børsand]

> <skjold@cistron.nl> skreiv:

> > Actually, on a side note, I'm wondering if it's really desirable to
> > use triangles for collisions when it comes to heightfields. Like you
> > illustrate below, the same heightfield can be drawn using triangles
> > in several ways, but it all boils down to drawing an approximation
> > much like the way you do with spheres and cylinders, which you
> > usually smooth out with some shading technique (e.g. goroud).

> > The actual heightfield is a 'sampling' at some resolution, that
> > represents a smooth, unfaceted terrain. Isn't it possible to test for
> > intersections against some form of interpolation function (e.g.
> > bilinear or bicubic), instead of triangles? Wouldn't colliding

Another method some games use is a heightmap which is represented by a
dynamically created mesh. This is clever because you don't need as many
polygons far away near the horizon as you do close to the camera, and
you could adjust this in real-time to make detailed terrain near you and
less details far away where they don't show anyway. I don't know how to
do this fast, though, but I've seen some games use it, and it seems to
work great.