Hey there,

I have the idea of a hobby project with huge numbers of units running around on top (and under!) dynamic terrain (RTS game).
For this, the game must obviously support something better than height maps to get caves and other funky structures.

Now I stumbled upon PolyVox & Thermite.

Since I wanted to use Ogre and Bullet anyway, I now wonder if I could just go with Thermite directly and save myself some time.

Here is the list of what I have in mind for the game:
Multithreaded, network support, very basic physics (nothing too fancy), instancing (maybe, but likely), pathfinding making use of underground + "overground" terrain, deferred shading, dynamic GUI (maybe using Gorilla or Navi)... I think that is all.

Yeah, I know it sounds mad. Obviously quite a lot of ground to cover, but I did spend the last months reading stuff about possible techniques and libraries, so I know it is possible, even for just one person, since you "only" have to use existing libraries.

Does any of this speak for or against the usage of Thermite?
Will integrating PolyVox be easier as I will have to integrate a dozen libraries into the project manually anyway?

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Hi, sounds like an interesting project! Especially if you can use the dynamic terrain to get a strategic advantage over your opponent

You should definitely use PolyVox directly as it is far more mature and stable than Thermite. I do use Thermite for my own game but it is too tightly coupled to that project and lacks any documentation. Using PolyVox directly will give you a lot more flexibility.

Best of luck with the project, and do ask if you have any questions.

Thanks for the answer

Then PolyVox it shall be.
I guess I could still look at Thermite to get an idea of how I can combine PolyVox with Ogre (and Bullet, while I'm at it).

Yeah, it will definitely be a pretty nice learning experience. Unfortunately, I won't be able to really start anything until next year. But I will spend what time I have right now to continue my research on libraries and planning.
Already have possible solutions for most issues. The biggest one remains that I want the project to be multiplatform, at least in theory, for Win, Mac and Linux (or only two of those, if it must be). That, and networking.

When I reach the point to have anything to show, I'll do it here, for sure. And an army of robots fighting an army of ogres would already be something to show, I guess

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