Speed difference of JME terrain versus modeled terrain?

I’m curious what the performance impact would be if I used a terrain modeled by a third party modeler and exported to .obj format versus using the built in JME height map terrian ? What are the pros and cons of doing so. I’ve bee fiddling with a terrain tool that has some really great features and foliage generation too.

Pros of height map based terrain over mesh based terrain :

Physic collision detection is done based on height map which is pretty faster than mesh based physic detection. (Using physics on mesh based terrain had very bad impact on physic in my test)

You have LOD control for your terrain . (Very performative)

Texture renders smoother. (Not know why)

You can add up to 12 texture layer

If it is L3DT (which i am using and is so cool) you can export heightmap , diffuse map (+ baked with light map), normal map , … and generate same terrain with JME Terrain.

It is l3dt :smile: I’ll have to look into generating code via control.

please take a look at jme3test.terrain.TerrainTestAdvanced.java and everything is explained there.
Good Luck