First of all, hello everyone! I’ve been very busy for a very long time and this is my first time in ages posting in the Thrive community.
I imagine that we might be able to simplify small (or far-off) plant-like organisms by making 2D billboard textures of them:
This could utilize the existing script which generates the pngs of organisms which are used for auto-eco reports etc.
The same simplification could be used for small motile organisms. If you’re a human-sized organism, bee-sized organisms may be represented as moving 2D billboard sprites. These could even be animated maybe?
In general, I think this isn’t an issue which is particular to sessile organisms. Thrives graphics present the challenge that the LOD system has to be conceived with an additional dimension: It’s not only about how far away things are, but also about how small they are relative to the player organism. It will be challenging, but I’m sure it’s doable, as these mechanisms already exist for distance-based LOD. The new and challenging part is just figuring out principles for how to apply them to size-based LOD changes.