Draw Distance · surveying the valley

Growing the Thousand Pines

Each tree is modelled once in full, then meshoptimizer cuts three cheaper copies of it for the distance. You are watching it happen.

Fetching three.js and meshoptimizer…Any key or tap hurries it along

The Thousand Pines · Valley

DrawDistance

A wooden glider, fifty thousand pines, and the light running out.

No flights logged yet · Seed 0 · fly another valley

Every tree below was simplified in your browser a moment ago. Press L to see which copy you're looking at.

Level of detail by meshoptimizer 1.3 (Arseny Kapoulkine, MIT) · rendering by three.js r186 (MIT) · type: Bellefair by Nick Shinn and Sofia Sans by Lettersoup, via Google Fonts · trees, terrain, glider and sound made in code for this page.

Flight card · read before release

How to fly

Stick: AD or ←→ bank. WS or ↑↓ pitch. Or hold the mouse button and drag: wherever you press becomes the centre of the stick.
Speed: Hold Shift to dive and trade height for speed. Hold Space for the air brake when you're too high on approach.
Lift: Circling birds and rising seeds mark a thermal, with a cloud on top. Bank into a steady circle where the vario chirps fastest, and climb.
Hoops: Six of the ranger's hoops mark the route down the valley. Through the middle counts as clean.
Landing: Lantern Meadow is the mown strip at the far end. Arrive low and slow, wings level, and touch down gently near the white T.
Lens: L tints every tree by its level of detail. F freezes the choice, so you can turn back and see what the distance was hiding.
Sun: About four and a half minutes of light. Land before dusk. Esc or P pauses, M mutes.
Phone: Left thumb anywhere on the left is the stick. Right thumb holds Dive or Brake. L and F sit on the triangle panel.

Ground crew

Settings

SoundWind, the vario and the hoops. M toggles it in flight.

Reduce flashingCalmer camera and no tint flicker. On when your system asks for reduced motion.

DetailHow many pixels of error a far tree may have before a finer copy is drawn.

PitchArcade: up climbs. Stick: up pushes the nose down, like a real control column.

Paused ·

Holding pattern

The valley waits, and so does the sun.

ControlKeysTouch Bank · pitchA D W S / arrows / mouse dragleft thumb Dive · brakeShift · Spaceright buttons Lens · freezeL · Fpanel chips Pause · muteEsc or P · Mtop right

Level of detail by meshoptimizer 1.3 (Arseny Kapoulkine, MIT) · three.js r186 · Bellefair and Sofia Sans via Google Fonts.

Logbook

Landed

0points

Workshop

One tree on the turntable. Drag the sliders and meshoptimizer re-simplifies it on the spot; the orange wire is what would be drawn, the solid shape underneath is the original.

Specimen

Method

Target triangles

Error limit

Show

Bytes on the wire

Watch the GPU walk the index buffer, before and after reorderMesh.

Grounded