Terrain is bad looking compared to most games, but it worked and did what bricks could not. Even after the update, there is no way to re create the things terrain could do effectively. A recreation of the slopes using bricks would require a good chunk of the brickcount just for one loop of it (remember, terrain repeats, builds don't) (you also have to think of all the invisible supports, as bricks cannot float by default). Well yea, you can "move on" instead of wanting to recreate the "caveman slopes" (note: they weren't caveman until a day ago), but you cannot achieve ANY type of terrain effectively on a large scale, yet.
Instead of looking to stay behind, I am trying to think of ways to bring the past up too, and improve it as well. Lets name some problem with terrain and some pros too.
Cons: - Spikey
- Poor lighting
- Texture stretching cliffs
- Broken lighting for some clients
- No support for it
- Does not support caves and the hole feature is just bad
- Holds back updates
Pros: - Repeats
- Provides height and surroundings for people who are not pros.
- Uses less power than the same made out of bricks
- Smooth allowing for vehicles to actually be used
- Can "bury" bricks in it and can build on the sloped sections, unlike interiors or ramp bricks
- Provided much fun for many years
Building terrains to replace old terrains is just as dumb as brick builds to replace the bedroom. It's not efficient and won't work. that's that. Brick terrain is what we're left with, but at it's current state, you won't get more than one or 2 "loops" of what a normal terrain map would (people have actually suggested for me to use INTERIORS over bricks for a terrain map i was doing, it took so much resources). This is why I have a suggestion to fix terrain, make it "fit in", improve it, and all.
Repeating actual bricks would be a poor solution, so would "terrain generator scripts" written by players. I suggest people build terrain, then "publish" it to a save file of sorts. The completed build (1024 grid of brick terrain or something) would be saved as a static file. This brick terrain, once finished, would be loaded in repeating chunks like terrain is now. Except to prevent memory overload, it would not support the deletion of the terrain bricks. The rendering on this terrain can be saved and duplicated making it so it doesn't have to take the power of rendering 1,000,000 bricks and memorizing each one's position. This would be cool as it would allow for repeating, lag free, brick terrain.
I also support a new "editor mode" to go along with this. The editor mode will allow you to preview what it will look like when complete, allowing you to smooth seams in the terrain edges. With this, it should support floating bricks to "edit" this terrain, allowing efficient, thin, terrain like we have now (removing the need for support bricks that aren't seen). This would also support terrain CAVES. It would basically just duplicate a static load at certain positions, also maybe allowing for solar system maps.
Having the ability to mix and merge "chunks" in generation would be cool. Lets think of it as a top down grid. Say I want the chunk at -2,4 from the middle to be a desert. I could create a mission file and plug in for that point to load a different chunk.
Setchunk(-2 4, "DesertBiomeChunk");it would still be efficient as the rendering is saved. This would allow for big, unique maps with different biomes and hidden zones which everyone seems to love.
THIS would be the next generation of terrain. Efficient and fitting, but with more power and use than the previous.
