How would you suggest approaching a multi-leveled terrain? Not necessarily something like hills and stairs the player could actually navigate on a Z axis, as that sounds fairly complex, but along the lines of a river that dips into the ground.
Right now my best guess is to create a model for the river bank, place that on every edge dipping into the river, then fill the river with a textured plane. The ordinary ground around it would likely have to be broken into several parts to cover the level’s ground without covering the river. I’d want to employ a similar idea to include cliff sides obstructing the player, but have little ideas besides a modeled object, but I’m concerned it’s height would result in people seeing between the layers of sprites. Overall it feels far too costly to throw tall 3d objects like this all over the map.
Any better ideas on how to implement this?