Shader-Heightmap-Textures adapted as terrain renderer for Freeciv-web

[Deleted user]

Hi stemkoski,

I think your Shader-Heightmap-Textures example for Three.js looks really great, and I wonder if you would be interested in adapting this example so it could be used as a terrain renderer for Freeciv-web?
Freeciv-web is an open source project developed on github. This means that all development is based on volunteer effort, and at the moment we're very interested in using Three.js to improve the visual effects in the game.

Here are some ideas I have about how to go about this:

• Adapt the Shader-Heightmap-Textures example so it is more suited for rendering the terrain in Freeciv-web. Based on a good stand-alone prototype of a Three.js terrain renderer, I could probably be able to integrate it into Freeciv-web myself.
• Render the terrain using Three.js on a webgl canvas, while rendering units, cities, tile specials using the current 2d canvas renderer. It is possible to overlay a 2d canvas over a webgl canvas.
• Support different tile types, such as grassland, desert, tundra, arctic.
• Isometric camera, perhaps by using the Orthographic camera in Three.js?
• Support generating the heightmap texture from javascript code rather than from a png image. Also the heightmap needs to be possible to updated as more terrain is discovered and changed over time.
• Render map boders in webgl.

I hope you find this interesting and would be interested in contributing to the Freeciv-web project! 👍