Railworks America

By which I mean, if I put up a mountain, is anything behind the mountain rendered or is it just ignored? Or maybe I should just ask if anything not in view of the player camera renders? And suppose I'm building a route that's as flat as the proverbial pancake? Do I need to be even more concerned about the number of assets & polys than, say, on a mountainous route where the total possible view-distance is limited by terrain?

I guess I'm just looking for some really general "theorizing."

Yes, it should cull anything not visible - I wonder sometimes if some HSC performance issues are the engine getting a bit confused doing this. Knocking down the amount drawn when you *can* see it is what LODs are all about - further away something is the less detail it needs, so it's easier to draw. I think most of the processing is probably due to lighting effects rather than going about the basics of drawing an asset though.

Kali wrote:I think most of the processing is probably due to lighting effects rather than going about the basics of drawing an asset though.

That sounds a little like "distance fog" from the old Unreal Editor. You could select various options for "fog" that would limit the draw distance and level of detail and so forth.