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

Terrain is technically just a picture that is shaped and textured. If computers had the processing power to handle an engine that could also handle rendered terrain being made in layers to provide that ‘thickness’ it would be more commonplace. It’s cheaper and a lot less consuming both on time and power to place an invisible wall where the terrain and objects begin than to render that many things just to avoid some clipping. All comes down to the programming as to how often it does or does not happen