Multiple scenes for an open-world game?

Questions
1

I have an “open world” game, Blankstorm, that uses a multi-scene system, and wanted to know if it’s better from a performance perspective to only use one scene. Here is how the system works:

A given Save has levels. Each Level is a scene with some extra properties that is generated upon instantiation. A Level’s location is a Vector2 that says where exactly that level is positioned in the world. Levels can be generated like Minecraft’s chunks - infinitely. Currently, only the player’s current level is rendered, since levels are 20,000 x 20,000.

For both performance and for some easier coding, I was wondering if a single-scene system would work better, where world generation and such occur similar to how Minecraft generates structures and such.

Here is a very simpe psuedocode example:
Old:

class Save
  Map levels
  Map ships
  Map playerData
  ...
class Level
  Array celestialBodies
  Vector2 location
  ...

New:

class Level
  Map levels
  Map ships
  Map playerData
  Array celestialBodies
  Vector2 location
  Function generateRegion() //generates structures, celestial bodies, etc. for a certain area.
  ...
2

I think both would work but a mono scene might be simpler to handle transitions and such ?

1 Like
3

I was thinking that could work to, though I’m not sure how that would affect performance in a very large world (maybe only render objects within a certain radius of the player?)

4

Maybe you could benefit from AssetContainer to prevent having unecessary objects in your scene ?

1 Like
5

Currently I use AssetContainer for most of the entities, though planets and stars are procedurally generated and can’t use AssetContainer.

6

so it should be all good and disabling far away meshes might be a good idea indeed :slight_smile: they would be by culling but if you are sure they are, you can save a bit of extra process.