Hey guys, i’m a game design student and i’m planning to make a open world VR game for android this semester, and I couldn’t’ find anywere about the limitations and how to create a world that doesn’t suck on performance. Can i just use the unity terrain tool for a lowpoly huge map or should I make one on a external 3D program? And also for anyone who knows about the topic, do you guys have any tips about things that i should pay attencion to when making a open world android VR, in terms of performence?
It’s not so much a limitation on the world size but how much detail the world has.
Many miles of desert and mountains is easy but if you expect to put dense forests of trees over them then you will quickly hit the limit on a medium priced Android device unless you have some design/programming tricks up your sleeve. You have to consider your topography detail too to keep the poly count down like roads cut into hill sides etc.
To give you some idea, in the image below I currently have a world about 65 square miles with rocky mountains, deserts and several clumps of trees and a few buildings, bridges etc. About a third of it is like what you see in the image. It runs about 30~40 FPS on a medium priced Android device. I’m just using Unity terrains at the moment while writing the core code.
A flight type game is difficult to create the illusion of a large detailed world because you can see most of it with altitude. A walk around type game with restrictions to paths etc.you could create a scene of being in a very dense detailed forest with few objects because you could set it up like stage props with only a background line of trees or graphic and some foreground trees to fill it out. Beyond the background trees there would be little therefore the restrictions to paths etc. otherwise the illusion is spoiled.
So think about the types of places you need to create in your world and how to design the illusion of it being more detailed than what it actually is because you definitely will hit limitations with the type of game you are thinking of.
That is a fantastic summary of the entire problem. Bravo.
Another thing is, fog/haze is your friend to obscure distance objects that pop into view but you have to get the colors and artwork right for it to look right.
So it is both a design/artwork issue and a code trick issue to get the best overall look and performance which is specific to your required world type.
Heavy use of particles will also kill the performance to a crawl, therefore realistic smoke trails for stunt planes etc. is an issue with a typical Android device.