I hope theres not any SAM's in those trees!

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I hope theres not any SAM's in those trees! (Page 1)

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Author	Topic: I hope theres not any SAM's in those trees!
Razer Pilot	posted 11-28- 01:32 AM Well, i though i had a brainstorm today about the trees and though i might have figured out a way to have forests in SDOE. Well, i wasn't. After talking with Nat (he tired before with no luck) we figured it was the billboard effect that was slowing the CPU. Well it was, Once i put trees in a static ground object i was able to get 20 or so trees in a group with only a 5 to 10 FPS drop. The above image was running at around 10 FPS and is about 3 groups of the trees i made. 1 group by it's self was fine and didn't hurt FPS that much and could be played online or off. Large groups of trees just can't be done on the current build. Maybe Michael and his buddies found something new and we might see new things in a new build. Just not this one. It would be nice to see things like this in a future WW2 OP game. For now, just enjoy the pic. ------------------ Tony "Razer" Martin "Making SDOE a dangerous Place, One plane at a time!" FS Hangar IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 11-28- 03:01 AM Spanky here... Hay man get a little closer to those suckers. Are they 2 poly trees? Crossed? Are they using any alpha or just a triangle? I never was into the billboard effect for trees. Keep trying man. Even small forests are a good thing in my book. IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 11-28- 04:33 AM Looks like 2 triangles crossed. Close up, they may look a little unrealistic withot alpha texture stuff, but hey! From the air, they look plenty good enough for me! Post them for us to playtest!!!!! Rhineland looks so bare without a few pine forests!!!! We could even add them to the terrains, so you wouldn't need to put them in as ground objects! Only needs a change to the SM and the new trees. OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!! Why am I so slow today..... Just clicked...Palm Trees.... Took 2 minutes in AC3D.... When I get home, I'll have it in an SM sharpish....DIEGO....Fancy some Jungle! [This message has been edited by wakeup tailgunner (edited 11-28-2000).] IP: Logged
Nat Pilot	posted 11-28- 06:04 AM Hey Tony Well I'm sure you'll agree they aint perfect, but damn they look better than none at all, alot better, and like the guys said, forrests are just needed! I reckon with a bit more work you can get them looking cool ~Nat~ sorry, yep alot better than blank terrain.. just had to say that again ------------------ 7./JG3 "Naturlich" "SDOE... What and where would you like to fly today?" http://members.nbci.com/naturlich/index.htm </B> IP: Logged
Rendsburger Pilot	posted 11-28- 07:11 AM Maybe it is possible to build forrests with the treelines,but i don´t know how it looks like from the air. Rendsburger IP: Logged
Pete Hawk Pilot	posted 11-28- 07:19 AM Very cool Tony! IP: Logged
ArgonV Pilot	posted 11-28- 07:33 AM Why dont you guys take the EAW approach to trees? Raise the terrain up where the forest trewe line begins and roughen over the top and maybe cut a few holes in it for "openings" in the forest. I think that would take a less hit than each individual tree. IP: Logged
wakeup tailgunner Pilot	posted 11-28- 07:55 AM well, you could make a textured lump of a forest, but I still think that something along these lines should be put around the edge. This would give the impression of a forest thinning out. Wouldn't need that many trees. Helps to hide the Mig Alley type of forest 'brick wall'. That would allow the scale of forest, and still look good. Also, you could hide ground units in the edges if the trees! p.s. I now have a clump of 10 palm trees ready to try out in a PTO airfield when I get home. The detail is better than the ols Island palm tree (ugh) but a little less than my replacement. ( I mean all 10 together! ) What you get is a two poly crossed trunk, with 6 radial fronds. Looks o.k. Trunk is narrow, so the effect is o.k. there, and the fronds look reasonable even close up. With 10 times the trees, you could even think you were in the jungle! Diego, if you read this, I should have some screenshots tonight ( Life permitting....) IP: Logged
Gecko Pilot	posted 11-28- 08:25 AM One idea extends the EAW approach, and I believe is used by Il-2, according to the screenshots. Basically, one would need a couple of horizontal alpha textured layers stacked verticaly. The alpha textures would then represent the cross sections of the trees, and would be completely tranparent between the trees. This way, with, say 5-10 layers consisting of a single large polygon you could probably create of the order of 100 trees with 256x256 textures. Not bad for 10 polys, right? -Gecko =FC= IP: Logged
Razer Pilot	posted 11-28- 11:36 AM Heres a pic for you guys. This is one group of trees. As you can see the FPS is still pretty high. If i spread the trees out a little more, then it might not be so bad. I'll play around with it later today. Maybe if i spread the groups apart it might also help.. ------------------ Tony "Razer" Martin "Making SDOE a dangerous Place, One plane at a time!" FS Hangar IP: Logged
spin Pilot	posted 11-28- 12:43 PM I think more extensive use of trees is a part of the game that could really add something. I have a suggestion, that may not have been considered (then again it's kind of obvious). Is there a way to make creative use of LODs to help with framerates? For example, greater than 1000-2000 feet away, use a textured image of a forest (perhaps 3 double sided polys - ie length X width X height). Beyond 5,000 feet - a single one sided poly for high altitude. Then as you get closer add increasing levels of detail, so individual trees begin to have definition. Trees would be invisible individually until a certain distance. IP: Logged
Razer Pilot	posted 11-28- 12:49 PM I've already though about that. But the reason you have trees now is that they are 2 poly's.. It's hard to have anything lower and have the distance thing. I'm going to play with it more today after i work on the hangar some. Maybe i'll figure something out. I did have an idea on how to setup the LODs even with a lower number of poyls i have now.. ------------------ Tony "Razer" Martin "Making SDOE a dangerous Place, One plane at a time!" FS Hangar IP: Logged
charmstar Pilot	posted 11-28- 01:19 PM I think spin is on the right track. What you could do is have a model of a tree, which is a few polys at its most complex (very close range), and then switches to the 2 poly level of detail you already have. You could organize small groups of a few trees under a parent model that would just be a few poly green block, and would only be in view while the individual trees are invisible. A few of the blocks could be organized into a group under a larger forest block that would be exactly the same, but with further switchin distances. For the larger forest you want, you would just continue adding groups of groups of groups with further and further switchin distances. So, it would be something like this: Main Forest LOD switchin 10000 ft, switchout 5000 ft. Sub Forest LOD switchin 5000 ft, switchout 2000 ft. Tree Group LOD switchin 2000 ft, switchout 1000 ft. Individual Tree LOD2 switchin 1000 ft, switchout 200 ft. Individual Tree LOD1 switchin 200 ft. Of course you would make the Level 1 LOD for the forest and group LODs be blank, so that they would turn invisible once you were closer than their switchout distance. charm IP: Logged
Gecko Pilot	posted 11-28- 02:15 PM Here is a series of pics showcasing the Il-2 idea: There are four forest segments stacked together, each one consisting of 10 layers (that's 20 rectangles, altogether 80 polys), which is way more than enough. There are sometimes some issues with poly sorting, and this causes some stutter at times, but I think separating layers further and reducing their number will cause this problem to disappear. -Gecko =FC= IP: Logged
Private Roger Pilot	posted 11-28- 02:29 PM Oooooo Geck!!!! Your a regular Johnny Appleseed! hehehe Looks good! I'll be anxious to see how this work progresses. PR=FC= IP: Logged
Gecko Pilot	posted 11-28- 02:36 PM Thanks, PR . Here are some more shots with only 5 layers, but as this doesn't look any worse and is better performancewise, it looks like the perfect compromise: -Gecko =FC= IP: Logged
Gecko Pilot	posted 11-28- 02:45 PM BTW, my specs are PIII 450 @ 515, Voodoo 3 3000, 128MB RAM. -Gecko =FC= IP: Logged
Razer Pilot	posted 11-28- 02:47 PM i'm i'm not sure how you did this, but i like the end result. Let me know more about how you did this and i may be able to get this done on a large scale. IP: Logged
ArgonV Pilot	posted 11-28- 02:52 PM Only problem with that is it doesnt look that good from the side. (Look at the tree line in the back) And the tree top is flat. IP: Logged
Razer Pilot	posted 11-28- 03:00 PM yes, but we might be able to use this is our long distance trees. then switch to my trees up close.. IP: Logged
charmstar Pilot	posted 11-28- 03:26 PM Wow Gecko, that looks great! You could even decrease the number of horizontal polys the farther away you get, which would make it even faster. I wonder how big of an area you can cover with a single texture before your frame rate really starts to fall off... Anyhow, quite a clever idea! charm IP: Logged
Gecko Pilot	posted 11-28- 03:47 PM Enough for today, I'll explain more tomorrow. Here is an experiment with repeating textures, though: -Gecko =FC= IP: Logged
-Audet- Cadet	posted 11-28- 04:05 PM Whay trees!!!! Nice one. BTW . Where do you guys get all these cool aircraft? IP: Logged
Nat Pilot	posted 11-28- 04:41 PM now those look good Geko what I'm thinking is maybe a mixture of both your and Tonys, if th trees don't look good from the side, then add a side poly with the tree texture on it for the edges, that way you get the best of both worlds. These are great though guys, I'm looking forward to trees with no major FR hits ------------------ 7./JG3 "Naturlich" "SDOE... What and where would you like to fly today?" http://members.nbci.com/naturlich/index.htm </B> IP: Logged
Aladar Pilot	posted 11-28- 04:57 PM SKREW THE TREES!! I WANT THE MiG!!!! IP: Logged
Razer Pilot	posted 11-28- 05:10 PM Gecko, i think you may be on to something.. they would be prefect for high alt, and distanct shots. i played with that some what.. i also played with it in photoshop to see what SDOE would look like if we had some cool features added ------------------ Tony "Razer" Martin "Making SDOE a dangerous Place, One plane at a time!" FS Hangar [This message has been edited by Razer (edited 11-28-2000).] IP: Logged
Robert Pilot	posted 11-28- 05:27 PM Keep up the good work guys! I think both ideas look good, so I say mix them! Can´t wait to see what you come up with next... /Robert IP: Logged
Nat Pilot	posted 11-28- 05:32 PM OK now you've really done it, I WANT OUR DAMN CRAPPY SKY CHANGING NOW DAMIT!!!! Where the hell does it get that crappy blue texture from? Tony, those new pines are lookin alot better! Mix some along the egdes of those texture trees to break up the hard edges and that would look wicked! ------------------ 7./JG3 "Naturlich" "SDOE... What and where would you like to fly today?" http://members.nbci.com/naturlich/index.htm </B> IP: Logged
AGAS - 5 Pilot	posted 11-28- 05:33 PM You guys (and SDOE) never fail to amaze me I look forward to this development with great anticipation. Cheers, ------------------ AGAS 5 CAC Skins IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 11-28- 06:28 PM Spanky here... Ok boys those trees are looking great. Great stuff Gecko. And I want that mig. K so If you guys don't bring this to full term i have the communitys permission to publicaly shoot ya right? Thats too much of a tease. IP: Logged
Diego Lozano Pilot	posted 11-28- 10:15 PM Okay, so I come home from a rotten day at work, wait on hold for 1 1/2 hrs for the #$king cable co to pick up, get into a shouting match with the @#$tch and I see this beautiful scenery...its so, soooooo relaxing! I want those palms TG! This is almost too much to bear. Jungle in a jungle terrain...who'd a thought? Great job guys. IP: Logged
robert s Pilot	posted 11-28- 10:49 PM Shouldn't Gecko's technique work for creating large city landscapes too? IP: Logged
Gecko Pilot	posted 11-29- 04:00 AM Razer, I think the combination of the two ideas is really where it's at! I think creating LODs that would switch from one approach to the other could work brilliantly, if done properly. I need to stress again that it is not my idea, but a copy of what seems to be done in the Il-2 sim. OK, so it was necessary to study how it was done and then implement it, but still, the idea is certainly not mine. Currently I am investigating some artifacts that occur. Most likely, in the LOD files one needs to select that flag that helps sorting the polygons. MH, Mighty, or anyone else who knows this, how are the alpha polygons handled? Z-buffer doesn't work well with those, so I gather some polygon sorting is taking place. Knowing how it is done would certainly help optimizing the approach. It all works fluidly most of the time, but at some points there are stutters occuring, and are usually connected with some artifacts in the object appearance. -Gecko =FC= IP: Logged
Gecko Pilot	posted 11-29- 04:05 AM Regarding the MiG-15; I'll release it once it reaches beta stage, meaning practicaly all systems operational, but in need of tweaking. Currently it's still very much MS Flight Simulator style aircraft; poor damage model, no guns, and no usable 3D cockpit . I'd say it will be made public in a fortnight (what a word!); it's not set in stone though, as girlfriend, work and possibly other stuff need just as much, and more attention. -Gecko =FC= [This message has been edited by Gecko (edited 11-29-2000).] IP: Logged
Bryan Russell Pilot	posted 11-29- 07:34 AM Hey Gecko, the trees look great. Can you post up pics of the seperate layers to give us that can't figure it out a clue It sounds similar to a layer 'slicing' approach that simulates parellax and therefore gives the impression of depth. If it helps, alpha polys are normally the 2nd last thing drawn. The last are the overlay items. They are sorted in back to front order, with Z-Buffer writes off (but Z testing on). I'm pretty sure the subface values are designed for co-planer polygons, so it may not work too well if they are seperate layers, and you are just suffering Z-precision errors. The only way to really reduce Z-Buffer precision probs is to make your viewing distance smaller, but it probably wouldn't be really effective until the view distance was way too small to be useful in the game. The subface thing basically just moves the poly with a higher subface value slightly closer to the viewpoint. IP: Logged
Gecko Pilot	posted 11-29- 08:17 AM Hey, Brian, thanks for the reply. I'm at work right now so I don't have pictures handy (and, gladly, the boss isn't here right now ). What you say just might be the same thing, yet I don't know what the slicing approach is . I'll just describe what I did in more detail. Viewed from the side, there are five polygons stacked vertically like this: ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ each of the polygons is mostly transparent, only where there are trees each one has somewhat circular non-transparent sections with some green stuff, which represents a cross section (a slice?) through the trees. Viewed from above, each polygon should look like a square, with the following random pattern in its texture. ...o......o........o......o.... o.....o........o.........o..... .....o........o........o......o ..o.........o.....o.......o...o ....o..o.............o.o....... ....o.o....o.........o....o.... ..o......o....o....o........... The 'o's represent the nontransparent sections in the poly texture (the trees), everything else (the '.'s) is transparent. Each polygon threfore represents a slice throught the forest at a different height. -Gecko =FC= [This message has been edited by Gecko (edited 11-29-2000).] IP: Logged
Razer Pilot	posted 11-29- 12:35 PM Gecko, I'm all for working together on this. if you want you can drop me an email at This Link ------------------ Tony "Razer" Martin "Making SDOE a dangerous Place, One plane at a time!" FS Hangar IP: Logged
Spanky the Mad Dog Pilot	posted 11-29- 02:16 PM Spanky here... Good luck guys, and please investigate other uses. Hmm water with real depth? I'm wondering, if those are big alpha polys, wouldn't THAT be hard on the FPS? IP: Logged
Gecko Pilot	posted 11-29- 03:58 PM Razer, I'd be honoured to work with you! I'll contact you tomorrow. Meanwhile, check another thread that I just posted . -Gecko =FC= IP: Logged
WhiteKnight_413 Cadet	posted 11-29- 07:26 PM Hey Razer! What plane are you flying in the first pic of the trees you have at the top! I can't realy telt from the picture but most imporantly WHERE CAN I GET IT! ------------------ "Engines 1 and 2 are on fire, 4 is shot to hell...i'm doing fine...BOOM!...I think." IP: Logged

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