That is right. And considering that a character is above the terrain all the time, simply parenting the sprite to the object might work.
I guess every method has it's disadvantages. Using a sprite doesn't allow for moving the vertices up and down separately. Using EntityOrder causes the terrain to be rendered below any characters. The multitexture solution works, but it takes far more memory than needed. And using a quad (preferrably with multiple subdivisions) will also need some tweaking to get it right, because the distance between the vertices should somehow match the vertices of the terrain. Otherwise some parts of the quad will still end up under the terrain.
I guess every method has it's disadvantages. Using a sprite doesn't allow for moving the vertices up and down separately. Using EntityOrder causes the terrain to be rendered below any characters. The multitexture solution works, but it takes far more memory than needed. And using a quad (preferrably with multiple subdivisions) will also need some tweaking to get it right, because the distance between the vertices should somehow match the vertices of the terrain. Otherwise some parts of the quad will still end up under the terrain.
Open in online IDE;setup graphics Graphics3D 800, 600, 0, 2 SetBuffer BackBuffer() ;create 1st texture texture1 = CreateTexture(512, 512) Cls Color 0, 0, 255 For i = 0 To 512 Step 10 Line i, 0, i, 512 Line 0, i, 512, i Next CopyRect 0, 0, 512, 512, 0, 0, BackBuffer(), TextureBuffer(texture1) ScaleTexture texture1, 512, 512 ;create terrain tw = 512 ;terrainwidth terrain = CreateTerrain(tw);LoadTerrain("c:\_Xfiles\height44.bmp") ScaleEntity terrain, 1, 10, 1 EntityTexture terrain, texture1 ;create camera camera = CreateCamera() ;CameraProjMode camera, 2 PositionEntity camera, tw/2, 500, tw/2 RotateEntity camera, 90, 0, 0 ;create quad mesh = CreateMesh() surf = CreateSurface(mesh) AddVertex surf, -1, -1, 0, 0, 0 AddVertex surf, 1, -1, 0, 1, 0 AddVertex surf, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1 AddVertex surf, -1, 1, 0, 0, 1 AddTriangle surf, 0, 1, 2 AddTriangle surf, 0, 2, 3 RotateMesh mesh, 90, 0, 0 ;ScaleMesh mesh, 10, 1, 10 FlipMesh mesh camera2 = CreateCamera(mesh) MoveEntity camera2, 0, 20, -50 HideEntity camera ;main loop Repeat time = time + 1 PositionEntity mesh, Cos(time) * 100 + tw/2, 0, Sin(time) * 100 + tw/2 ;calculate x/y position circle For t = 0 To 3 TFormPoint VertexX(surf, t), VertexY(surf, t), VertexZ(surf, t), mesh, 0 yy# = TerrainY(terrain, TFormedX(), TFormedY(), TFormedZ()) + 1 TFormPoint TFormedX(), yy#, TFormedZ(), 0, mesh VertexCoords surf, t, TFormedX(), TFormedY(), TFormedZ() Next ;render RenderWorld() Flip ;until ESC is pressed Until KeyHit(1) End