Hallo guys
i have to decide what is the best way to render my 3D world game
this is my situation and my related question
SITUATION
I’m implementing a sort of space shooter game but instead to have a classic side scrolling the ship
is rendered look at the ship from back.
the style is similar to Air Strike 3D (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHkARvzsrMU)
so in my head the word is like a long rectangle and the ship (and the camera) is moving from one site to the other site of the rectangle until the rectangle is finish
WORD REPRESENTATION
now my idea is to:
describe the word by configurations file (properties or xml) that represent the word as a grid in the way that i can easily customize different levels
so the word is a grid of element that has a specific x and y (conditioned by the grid position) and z coordinate
enemy are initialized in a specific x,y coordinate in the grid
other elements are initialized in a specific x,y coordinate in the grid
now my question:
what is the best way in this kind of games to render the word in terms of performance?
1)I can render all the word in one shot compile it in a glList and use it every loop
2) find a valid algorithm to segment the word based on camera view and decide what element draw, but in this way every loop i have a computation to decide what cells draws
3) other solution?
for example in a games of fly simulation what is the algorithmic /strategy that the developer use usually?
thanks