I’ve learned that video game ‘clipping’ is caused by high velocity, thin colliders, and too-slow physics updates. Why are terrain surfaces in most 3D video games paper-thin? Why isn’t terrain given extra fill/thickness inside and under it to prevent ‘falling through the map into the void’?

Question

I could see why you might not want to fill under the terrain in a game that features things like underground caves, but thin terrain seems to be present in a huge majority of 3D games (even those without underground features) and is not engine-specific. Why is terrain almost always a fragile piece of origami that’s so easily punctured?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Video games use what is called “surface modeling”. There is no concept of thickness to the models at all.

You could increase *collider* thickness, but that’s not a fix. If your computer has a hitch for some reason you will still “bullet through paper” if using a naive physics solver.

When we would write physics solvers in school ~20 years ago we would project volumes for objects moving from A to B and test those against every other object’s trajectory, and then solve for the exact moment and point of collision. There was no bullet through paper problem.