Today we’re going to talk about global changes to the creation of landscape surfaces, and we’ll demonstrate the improvements that players will be able to see in all the familiar ground locations.

We recently discussed our new algorithm for landscape relief detail (displacement mapping), that we’re planning to introduce to the game after the release of War Thunder update 1.77. However, the biggest change that Dagor Engine 5.0 will bring to the game is a new technology for creating surfaces in locations for ground battles. We have reworked the technology for creating landscapes in War Thunder in order to enhance the level of detail and realism in their component materials. So, in addition to the previously existing normal textures, translucency and albedo coloured textures, we are introducing a detailed roughness map, ambient occlusion maps and a ground type map (such as grass, sand, dirt, etc) allowing us to enhance the shading quality while adding a whole new level of ground detalization.

This required us to improve the landscape of all the game’s current locations in the current update. It’s a tremendous amount of work and we believe that it was worth the effort: familiar landscapes now look completely different thanks to the new realistic land and ground. Take a look at the level of landscape detail we have managed to achieve: