Voxel LOD generation

LOD (Level of detail) now working for voxel *generation* as well as building.

Here’s a YouTube at full res for the LOD-lovers like me out there 😉

As discussed in the last post, the generation phase is deciding on the matrix (8x8x8 for LOD0) of numbers that comprises a voxel ‘ChunkData’ whereas the building phase is turning those numbers into a ‘Chunk’ with a ‘Mesh’ — a thing you can actually see and interact with.

This new work means:

• LOD0 (white boxes) contain 512 floats and 128 triangles = unchanged.
• LOD0i (yellow boxes) contain 512 floats but only 2 triangles = unchanged.
• LOD1 (cyan boxes) contain 1 float and 2 triangles = the NEW bit!

You can see how that’s much less memory and much better performance — especially for covering *much* larger arenas!

Yep, open(er) world campaign mode, here we come!

p.s. As with most gamedev or even programming, this took a great deal of frustrating tweaking including upgrading Unity and several assets then creating a whole new way to investigate details about voxel spaces that are generated on threads.  I know, implementation details.  I’m happy to discuss and the answer will involve phrases like “Marching Cubes”, “Isovalues” and lots about “neighbours”.  Ask if you’re curious / suffering from insomnia 😛

Oh and there’s still plenty of work to do before someone asks “is it done yet”.  There’s a reason I don’t show the Snowmen moving around in it yet 😉

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