How can I create a large, dynamic map without putting millions of gameobjects into the scene?

Unity Engine
1

My goal is to make a large map covered in grass which can be cut and regrow. If the map had a fidelity of just 1000x1000 grass units, that would be a million things in the scene that have to be updated. And I want more than that. I understand that I can lighten the load by making the updating of these grass patches done by one central script that only updates each grass patch occasionally, but I’m concerned that that won’t be enough.

I guess what I asking is: is Unity clever enough to deal with, say, a hundred million objects, if those objects are just a sprite renderer, a 2d collider, and a little script with no update method?

2

The general idea is to only load parts of the map that are within the player’s field-of-view.
There are a bunch of different ways to go about this though. Perhaps try looking for some guides for that.

3

@Vryken

Thanks, I’ll do that.

4

Why are they all unique objects? You could have 100 clumps of grass in one object…

5

That’s more-or-less what I’ve ended up doing. I’m curious to hear your take on it, though. What combination of components would you use to make it work?

6

I dont know what your project is, so I can’t answer that. But it sounds like a mistake to simulate growing grass more than a few units away from the camera.