[ODE] Methods of handling terrain

[Megan Fox]

As you say, a trimesh would fit the needs of your specifications. 
However, you might want to think about NOT breaking the trimesh into
multiple smaller/separate geoms - OPCODE already has an AABB tree
built into it, and it may end up being more efficient if you hand it
all the triangle data in one lump and let it do what it needs to do
with the data.

As for things falling through... check the usual suspects - Did you
verify the winding order/normals were correct?  Were you generating at
least 24 contacts per point?  What step-size were you using?  You
weren't depending on trimesh-trimesh collisions, right?  Etc.

-Megan

> I'm quite certain I'll be using a trimesh, and that it'll have to be
> "segmented" into x*y chunks to speed up the collision detection process. I
> had previously tried to implement the terrain model using a trimesh, but had
> trouble with objects falling through it, but I have never really looked into
> it again (I dropped that at the time and instead spent my time getting
> networking, sound, etc working while I put more thought into how to handle
> terrain.)
>  
> One specific question I have is: Anyone have a good algorithm/concept for
> calculating LOD of a trimesh? ie: where the terrain is fairly flat, we want
> fewer triangles than where it is very hilly/bumpy.
>  
> This weekend I'm planning on working on the terrain, and just looking for
> anyone's thoughts and experiences. 
>  
> Paul Vint
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