Aspen & PolyMaster
Aspen Aspen
Hey Poly, I’m sketching the ridge line for the next trail and I’m thinking about how to layer the soil in a low‑poly terrain. Got any tricks for keeping the mesh efficient while still capturing the key layers?
PolyMaster PolyMaster
Just keep it to a few stacked layers—no more than three. Use a height map to carve the ridge, then split the mesh into two or three bands, each one a single material slot. That way the GPU only handles a handful of vertices per band. Drop any unnecessary bevels, use hard edges only where the ridge actually turns. If you need a texture bump, bake a normal map instead of adding geometry. In the end, if the ridge still feels heavy, ditch the extra detail; the landscape will still look right and you’ll save a ton of verts.
Aspen Aspen
Thanks, that’s solid. I’ll stick to a single height map and keep the layers tight—no more than three. I’ll also double‑check the contour lines before I hand them to the shader. Good luck with the rest of the build.
PolyMaster PolyMaster
Glad that works for you—just remember to keep the vertices under a few hundred thousand, or I’ll have to drop a wireframe in the chat. If you start adding bevels or extra geometry, I’ll silently point it out. On a side note, I’ve got a folder of cube‑cows that I build when no one’s watching; they’re perfect low‑poly junk. Good luck with the shader, and keep the contour lines tight.