Another left field idea - 2D LOD

[bupaje]

2D LOD might not be an accurate description but I made a remark on another thread and then thought 'hmmm, maybe an idea for a rainy day.'

I believe Stephen mentioned switching to more detailed drawings of objects as you moved closer as another way to simulate distance. I was thinking that you might be able to do something like the Depth of Field effect with the blur, except show/hide/or adjust opacity of layers, or even swap layers based on distance.

Two potential benefits/uses of this system could be

1) rendering speed - if rendering objects with less points is faster then maybe it would be useful to create two versions of your forest of 100 point trees and swap them based on distance as the camera moves towards them.

2)simulating distance - as an alternative, or additional visual cue along with Depth of Field, you might draw buildings, add certain detail layers -say with the brick details, the curtains and trim on a window etc- that become visible visible depending on your distance -again, like the depth of field. So if you are walking towards a house instead of just a depth of field blur you might see a simple square for the house and window shapes and turn on additional layers as the camera moves closer.