Irrlicht Engine

Irrlicht does frustum culling (you can choose which version on a per-node basis). But it does not do occlusion culling. So when you're underground, but an overground object is in the theoretical line of sight it is still rendered.

Indeed. To be clear, what I'm suggesting is to create 3 scene nodes which will form the start of 3 heirarchies to which all the other nodes/meshes are attached: above ground; stairs; below ground.

The stairs node will always be visible (as it can be seen from both above and below ground). When the camera is above ground, set the below ground scene node (and therefore all the nodes/meshes under it in the scene heirarchy) to invisible, and vice versa.

I'm not suggesting that you need to do it, just that if you're going to pitch this as a demo to a potential employer, that you should be ready to discuss it as an optimisation.

Excellent demo.

Two small points of critisism.
- the volume of sound of the busses is not related to distance to the camera
- In 'Level_demo.exe' there is a leak in the map. You can fall through at the end of the subwaytunnel. See screenshot.
There is one in 'animation.exe' too, which I am sure you are aware off

Evo: Wow. I never saw that leak! Sorry. Thanks for reporting it. There is a way also to jump on the bus, get on the roof and go on the walls for there you could also go outside the map. But this one I knew about it. I'll go in the tunnel and check were I did the mistake. (Perhaps a bad positionning, because the tunnel is in 3 parts)

Rogerborg and Hybrid: Thanks, but this demo as already been submitted. This will have to be planned carefully for my new project. This demo was submitted to promote my skills as a modeler in game environnements. So it's not that bad. (exept the leak ). I'll try to have objects in some way that I'll hide them as your recommend in the next project. (Doing some sketches and see what is in view) Having the stairs always visible is a good idea.

Hybrid: Do you think someone will plan to have the occlusion culling implemented someday in next releases? Or someone released some code already?

by any chance were you wearing a blue top, and a sling shouldered bag on the day you took the pictures, look at the front of the bus.

lol Its great loved the demo to avoid that happening use angle shots of photo shop it out.

also what editor did you use?

Yes. that was me on the front of the bus.

That was intentionnal to let "me" there. Nice that you seen it!

That was not the best day to shot (very sunny). Used Lightwave + Photoshop for texturing and creating the model.