World building from GDC
click pics to enlarge
Core Theme: Procedural generation as much as possible, removing months of extra work. Terrain Edit: Novigrad, one of 3 main areas Generated with World Machine 46x46 tiles, 512x512 each (23552^2), 63MB 0.37cm between vertices, ~74 km^2 total (35 times Witcher 2)
adaptive software tessellation (no "wasted triangles")
3 texture layers: Background (e.g rock), Foreground (e.g. snow), Control map (e.g slope)
Terrain shadows
Vegetation: Custom vegetation generator
pigment map for better blend with ground color
Photoshop-like stamp/brush-Tool for fine tuning Other: 16 people working on Engine. Automatic occlusion culling + streaming with Umbra.
Automatic LOD generation with Simplogon. Artist created in Witcher 2, and "they hated it".
Links: Terrain and vegetation: http://twvideo01.ubm-us.net/o1/vault...eation_and.pdf Simplogon LOD generator: http://twvideo01.ubm-us.net/o1/vault...ed_Up_Your.pdf Umbra 3 culling + Streaming: http://twvideo01.ubm-us.net/o1/vault...ibility_In.pdf