For more information, visit their web site or contact them via e-mail. Gamasutra posted a new article entitled Using Bitmaps for Automatic Generation of Large-Scale Terrain Models , by Kai Martin. As the title hints, it covers techniques for generating large terrain models using artist-created bitmaps, in a short amount of time. Alex Champandard posted a new test release of his OpenGL landscape engine, Escape . The landscape is now made up of multiple surfaces, which are computed with a perlin noise function.
Level of detail is the same for the whole scene for the moment, but can be adjusted via the console.
The adaptive quadtree takes care of creating all the visible surfaces of the infinite landscape, which explains the relatively low FPS while the camera is moving. I'm now thinking of reintroducing the fractal curves of the first demo for greater speed, as the perlin noise is not really satisfactory for a realtime engine. The new release includes various changes and bug-fixes since the beta. Wired News posted an article entitled Chip Battle Gets Graphic , on the competition between ATI and NVidia in the graphics chip field. Noticed on Blue's News that GameSpy posted the first installment of the Ethermoon Developer Journals , exclusive monthly journals from the lead developer and president of Ethermoon Entertainment.