In 2009 sinbad (founder of Ogre) started to create a new terrain system. It' a scene manager, which replaces the old Terrain Scene Manager and included ideas of other terrain add-ons. Since Ogre 1.7 the new Ogre Terrain Manager is part of the Ogre core.

Basic Tutorial 3 shows how you can use this terrain system.

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

Features

• SceneManager-independent, separate optional component (OGRE_HOME/Components/Terrain)
• Integrates with (optional) Paging component
• Inherently editable - a lot like ETM 😉
• Hierarchical geometry batching; batch counts reduce at lower LODs as well as vertex count. At the lowest level of detail, the entire terrain page is a single batch which has obvious advantages for large paging terrains over the fixed tiles previously used. There's also the opportunity to go to a lower overall resolution and to drop detail geometry in the far distance compared to non-hierarchical approaches.
• Skirts are used instead of stitching to avoid cracks in geometry; This means fewer indexing arrangements & lower overall index buffer usage
• In-built support for splatting layers, configurable sampler inputs and pluggable material generators
• Support for generating global normal maps and light maps in a background thread
• Saving & loading of terrain built in, including loading / processing in a background thread
• LOD now adapts in real-time to camera settings (viewport sizes & LOD bias) so you can use the same terrain with multiple views efficiently

See also

• . . . . . . TODO: . . . Add link to the API class reference . . . . . .
• Basic Tutorial 3 - How to use the terrain system
• New Terrain Early Shots - Forum topic for Development Talk
• Paging as a core feature - design notes - Forum topic
• Future plans for Ogre::Terrain? - Forum topic
• Mogre terrain and paging - Forum topic for usage with Mogre (.NET)
• Ogitor - A Scene Editor, which can create terrain based on the Ogre Terrain System
• SceneManagersFAQ - An overview for other scene managers