Hi. This is more a discussion rather than a question, so please share your experience.
Usually, in open world games we are use to see mountains. How they are created?
It’s easy to see when the designers use a set of statics meshes (usually rocks and cliffs) or just they paint the height map with layered materials.
Well, assuming that every open world game is built by an external terrain tool like World Machine or Terragen,
we notice that in Skyrim mountains are built by a set of meshes, but is not the same for The Witcher 3.
Skyrim mountains
The Witcher 3 mountains
As far as I know, the best way to achieve the painting in one shot (without doing it manually) is to apply the textures in a way that the colors are blended depending on the inclination (rock, grass, mud usually). In this case the effort is on doing this operation.
Different from this approach, building mountains by a set of static meshes requires doing it manually.
Assuming my observations are not wrong, what do you think about these 2 techniques?
Which one is better or, when is recommended use one instead of another?
What about the weakness and strong points of each of them?