I know this is probably the holy grail of terrain programming but I was wondering about where the state of the art was in relation to forests with tree''s that look better than sprites... I''ve read info on subjects regarding high poly realistic tree''s (and played with lightwave''s darktree plugin) but I was wondering what we can currently do in realtime. I mean something like algorithmicly generated tree''s that tesselate apon closer inspection but when across a valley can be represented very effeciently(maybe even as a sprite\singple poly). For example just say you make a ~ high detailed tree of a 100 or so polys for close range inspection, but as you back off it reduces detail until at range what you catually see is a screenshot of the tree painted on to a single poly(alpha mapped of course). What about making all your tree''s look a little different? Many thanks gimp

to render terrains with varying LODs u got to use something known as quad trees.this method once implemented also helps in erradicating hidden polygons in a very fast manner.