Fading textures the further away it is.

[Vakachehk]

I think PlaneShift would look 100% more better if you implement 'fading'. Basically what I'm meaning is that the further the distance the more the fading. Instead of what you have now, which is balk loading, full textures and all (using a lot more of your computer's hardware, so I'm guessing this might lower the minimum requirements).

Here an image of a WoW map, I got when searching in Google Images


Here I can see about 4-5 levels of fading.
 - there's the high quality (around the character)
 - mid quality further out around the character (kind of at the bottom of the slop, or on top of the next little sloppy rise)
 - light texturing with more basic colours (the closer part of the hill near the tower that's behind the large tree)
 - and then further out where there's just one colour (the orange hills)


I understand this is very hard to implement, but it's something for the future and will look absolutely great!

[LigH]

I don't know how you measure those "100%"...

But I can agree in several points, especially because most of such techniques already exist and have been used before, if not even still (except for bugs disabling them):

a) The mipmap levels are currently created with a sharpening filter (Kaiser). A bad idea. On one hand, it tends to flickering (texel aliasing) in the distance. On the other hand, it is the cause of the problems with the binary transparent textures (e.g. fences and tree/bush crowns) getting halos, as reported in PS#3761, because the used DDS converter filters the alpha channel too, which is technically wrong.

b) Some haze could be achieved by always adding a fog. Unfortunately, it reveals texture issues related to the filtered mipmaps, as you will have spotted in black tree crowns.

c) The "texture splatting" already existed in previous PlaneShift versions, but only for heightfield maps: Detailed textures in close range are blended off against a generic texture in a distance, a basic layer covering the whole heightmap square.

d) A blurring shader might be possible, but not really recommendable. The experience from games like Gothic 3 or Risen revealed that it is computing intense.