PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Ver on October 02, 2007, 06:24:01 am
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I am sure people have noticed that on the long narrow path outside of Hydlaa city, the "trees" along that path look terrible! :thumbdown:
They're nothing but a single small texture repeating over and over. It looks like someone cut out a bad cardboard image of tree trunks, made thousands of copies, and glued them on to cheap pieces of flat black posterboard, rather than like a forest.
What caused the map designers to (no offense intended) slap an ugly repeating wallpaper over a flat-polygon wall instead of having rows of polygonal individual trees? I can't imagine it was technical limitations -- maps like the Eagle Bronze Doors and Hydlaa city are far larger and more high-poly than that forest path, and their trees look like trees!
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probably because they were all they had when that part was initially made? - it shows how far they have come though....
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Because it was simple to make and they wanted a longer patch through forest. And a forest so dark, that nobody would walk through it, otside the path anyway.
I don't agree it looks that bad. Although i hate when trees are so low, like in an orchard.
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That was one of the earliest maps that was made, long before the Bronze Doors map.
I do agree that it would be nice to see a newer version, where the forest would actually be explorable.
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In fact large parts of Hydlaa are much older than the forest road. Still they look much better.
I think the problem is that PS's engine needs 'loading tunnels' similar to some shooters like Half-Life. Even there, without large open areas, it's hard to place those 'tunnels' in a way that the player doesn't notice that he just ran into an unnatural pipe.
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Are there any plans to polish the existing maps anytime soon? There are huge differences in quality when looking at different areas. The winch for example gives a very strange impression. The main builing is great, the rest of the map looks like it's made of prafabs that have been copied over and over again.
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CS needs zones and to cross from one zone to another there are portals (portal is a flat plane) for. But it is not the main problem with big forests. It's the graphical lag the main enemy. If you see too many faces at once you are going to experience very low FPS, unless you or on new comp and like 2048MB of memory... unfortunately not everyone are so lucky.
In theory we could have portals of any size (in BD there is a huge portal as the great cave opening starts, i think), but then you would instantly see what is on the other side... tis woud cause graphical lag as there is reasons why you load one and not all maps at once. Thats how i see it at least.
But at the same time i believe it is possible to use tricks (including fog, min/max render dist. smaller zones, but with larger portals, so that you can see ony through first portal and what is after another won't render, -tricks) to experience similiar behaviour, but keep the FPS ar reasonable level. In the end there is noone in PS team who would do it. There is not enough time. It is already hard to make completly new zone and everytime you do so, it is better than another. And in the end the first made zone looks like crap comparing to the new.
Currently someone would have to look at the whole thing and work on it hard to make each consistant with another.
And it may be done with these "tunels" too, so well you won't even realise you are crossing one.
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The FX generations of graphic cards can handle a huge amount of polygons easily. Earlier graphic cards were hardly able to handle a high polygon count in the same way. You will know how slow the game can get when looking across the plaza - because you can see a lot more polygons here than anywhere else...
Okay, this is only one factor; another factor is that you can see a lot more chars and objects at the plaza too, which have some calculations of their appearance on top - like movement animations.
With more and more powerful graphic cards around, the developers could consider adding realism to the forest.
Could. If there were not many more important tasks first.
I just remember that I contributed fixes for the low-poly trees more than half a year ago, to avoid their bright seams; they got lost somewhere between Karyuu and Talad.
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Ah yes, the graphics cards, i keep forgetting about that x]
And yea, in the end its we who could fix a lot of problems, but even if we do, the chances it get implemented without constant bugging are miserable. and even then..
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Well I have an 8800gts with 1 gig or ram. Everytime I look in the plaza everything gets all laggy. Not sure if it's just lag or it's all the stuff in there.
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Well I have an 8800gts with 1 gig or ram. Everytime I look in the plaza everything gets all laggy. Not sure if it's just lag or it's all the stuff in there.
Somone once told me, and oddly enough it helps...but change your camera veiw so you are looking down a bit, and not looking up twards the sky at all. I am not saying look striaght down and bump into things as you walk around...just tilt it down some, I find it a very helpfull easy fix.
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I like the forest how it is, you can walk on top of it :woot:
I always wanted to use that smiley...
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Heh, you can even walk under it. ;)
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PErsonally, being leader of a rangers guild, I'd rather like to be able to walk through it o.O
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Somone once told me, and oddly enough it helps...but change your camera veiw so you are looking down a bit, and not looking up twards the sky at all. I am not saying look striaght down and bump into things as you walk around...just tilt it down some, I find it a very helpfull easy fix.
That also works really well in the BD region. Just avoid looking at the waterfall at all cost... even if it means staring at the ground as you run risking knocking yourself out on a tree. :P
As far as the trees on the path looking strange, i actually never really even noticed. If I was to venture a guess, I'd think that before version 1.0 rolled around a lot of things would be cleaned up but, in the mean time I can think of a gazillion other things I'd rather see worked on before foliage aesthetics.
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I am sure people have noticed that on the long narrow path outside of Hydlaa city, the "trees" along that path look terrible! :thumbdown:
They're nothing but a single small texture repeating over and over. It looks like someone cut out a bad cardboard image of tree trunks, made thousands of copies, and glued them on to cheap pieces of flat black posterboard, rather than like a forest.
What caused the map designers to (no offense intended) slap an ugly repeating wallpaper over a flat-polygon wall instead of having rows of polygonal individual trees? I can't imagine it was technical limitations -- maps like the Eagle Bronze Doors and Hydlaa city are far larger and more high-poly than that forest path, and their trees look like trees!
Didn't I say this exact same thing about two years ago?
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I had a talk with Karyuu a while back, and yes, better looking vegetation (of all kinds) is on the Great List of Things that will be Improved. But, you will have to be patient.
On a separate note, my all time favorite forest landscapes are in the game Shadow of the Colossus. Simply breathtaking.
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As far as the trees on the path looking strange, i actually never really even noticed. If I was to venture a guess, I'd think that before version 1.0 rolled around a lot of things would be cleaned up but, in the mean time I can think of a gazillion other things I'd rather see worked on before foliage aesthetics.
This is true, and of course I implicitly understand this. Certainly, things like this will all be tweaked to perfection until 1.0, but it's on a list of thousands, and far from the most important. The importance of community discussions like this, though, is kind of putting it on the agenda in the first place.
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Just one thing...
Is it bothering us that much that we want the devs to use up the time that they could be using to make new maps, redesigning old ones?
The Devs have got a whole world to create, don't hassle them to refine bits they've already done. ;)
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Shadow of the Colossus
Never even heard of that. Screenshots! :D
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As I already mentioned in the thread about a useful "walkable forest" technology: The approach used in "Gothic - the game" was quite smart - few opaque polygons in the distance, getting transparent on approach, and finally show single polygonal trees.
Forests, grass and how it can be done (http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=19828.0) ==> How to Render a Forest in 3D (http://worldforge.org/project/newsletters/August2001/RenderingForests)
^ Just another example what you miss when you don't search the existing threads.
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Unfortunately if development priority was decided by community discussions little would get done as the minute some new idea appeared it would be "ohh shiny new idea, lets do that first instead" and we'd end up with a gazillion unfinished projects
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curently plane shift dusent case my graphics card to worm up atall, about 40 c, but making a high poly modal in blender often makes it hit 80 c. gforce 7600 gs