Quad Tree

The landscape is a quad tree of a variable depth. The default depth for the game is 6. This allows me to create 4096 squares, each of which is divided into 2 triangles.

Lighting

A single pass through the tree grabs all the heights and generates the lighting normals. This is done once at the beginning of the terrain and after each deformation. When the drawing code parses the tree it grabs the correct lighting normal for each vertex. The per-vertex lighting allows for a smoother landscape.

Collision Detection

The quad-tree nature of the landscape also allows for collision detection in log(n) time.

Display Lists

Unfortunately the deformable property of the terrain doesnt allow it to be stored in a display list. Nor can I use tesselation to increase the detail of the terrain. All other objects have been added to the display list.

Height Maps

The landscape can be generated either from a fractal algorithm, or from a heightmap bmp file.

Other Ideas (yet to be implemented)

Tri structure for storing branches. Leafs will display leaves. Tree depths dependent on distance from camera. Branches and leaves will be Display Listed. On the fly tessalation of triangles closes to the camera for added detail.