Terrain looks really bad!
by Wael Zeenni · in Torque Game Engine · 04/18/2001 (8:47 am) · 26 replies
Hey people,
I don't want to step on any toes here or saound too anal but I just bought my copy of Tribes2 and was COMPLETELY dissapointed by the terrain.No offense or anything,but I think that Dynamix could seriously do better than that! (once again,no offense to the GG staff or anything,but I have seen better terrain)If you purposly made the terrain the way it is to accomodate all those online players and keep the frame rate up,then I understand,but otherwise,it was all very ugly :p
So this brings me to my next question: how much of a hassle would it be to totally replace the terrain class (if indeed it is a class) with some other terrain class? (ignore the editor for the moment)
I don't want to step on any toes here or saound too anal but I just bought my copy of Tribes2 and was COMPLETELY dissapointed by the terrain.No offense or anything,but I think that Dynamix could seriously do better than that! (once again,no offense to the GG staff or anything,but I have seen better terrain)If you purposly made the terrain the way it is to accomodate all those online players and keep the frame rate up,then I understand,but otherwise,it was all very ugly :p
So this brings me to my next question: how much of a hassle would it be to totally replace the terrain class (if indeed it is a class) with some other terrain class? (ignore the editor for the moment)
About the author
#22
But the poly count and texturing of the terrain in MM2 totally blows the terrain in T2 away! No question about it! (Look at the screen shots again) You'll notice in MM2 for example,there are no repeating textures (and if there are,they did a really good job hiding it!) While in Tribes2,the jungle or desert maps for example),it all looks sooo baren.No life.I guess that's not important to Tribes2 but to a person who wants to make some game which relies on good looking terrain,then it is important.
Look at the MM2 screenshots again.Look at the curvature at the top of the hills for example.Now,I don't know about you,but I DO notice the jaggedness there while the terrain in MM2 has them nice and curved.Tell me I'm wrong!
Once again,leave gameplay out of this.I'm just comparing the terrain.That's all :)
04/18/2001 (4:19 pm)
Pat: How could you say that?! If anything,the terrain in Motocross Madness 2 has about 100 times more foliage than Tribes2!(Foliage in Tribes2 might not be a good idea though :P)But the poly count and texturing of the terrain in MM2 totally blows the terrain in T2 away! No question about it! (Look at the screen shots again) You'll notice in MM2 for example,there are no repeating textures (and if there are,they did a really good job hiding it!) While in Tribes2,the jungle or desert maps for example),it all looks sooo baren.No life.I guess that's not important to Tribes2 but to a person who wants to make some game which relies on good looking terrain,then it is important.
Look at the MM2 screenshots again.Look at the curvature at the top of the hills for example.Now,I don't know about you,but I DO notice the jaggedness there while the terrain in MM2 has them nice and curved.Tell me I'm wrong!
Once again,leave gameplay out of this.I'm just comparing the terrain.That's all :)
#23
04/18/2001 (5:40 pm)
Could you maybe post a screenshot of this horrid terrain you're seeing? Possibly paint yellow lines with paint brush around the areas of interest? It could be that something on your system isn't working right.
#24
04/18/2001 (11:45 pm)
The framerate isn't so hot with all the foilage and whatnot. It's ok I suppose on a slow turning motorcycle game. You can detect the framerate getting low by doing continuous 360's, the landscape/trees become a bit jittery. I suppose it's ok on a non-action game like Black and White as well. However with Tribes2 in which a fine tuned aim helps alot you don't have the luxury of putting lots of foilage all over the place to lower the framerate. Also the more curvy you make the terrain the more polygons required hence even lower framerate.
#25
especially the foilage that was included. It would be nice to have such amount of foilage in tribes2 but it would blow the system specs way out ide say.
As for ground textures, I think that tribes2 could have been a little more detailed. they do seem fairly plain.
But I like the way they are blended together and the ease of use. Im looking at getting V12 to play around with in the future for a fantasy type roleplaying game. I would love to see how well I can use the terrain to make large rolling hills with paths and roads. I think it will suit the purpose perfectly.
Brendan/Duel
04/19/2001 (12:10 am)
I have to say that MCM2 was very impressive graphically.especially the foilage that was included. It would be nice to have such amount of foilage in tribes2 but it would blow the system specs way out ide say.
As for ground textures, I think that tribes2 could have been a little more detailed. they do seem fairly plain.
But I like the way they are blended together and the ease of use. Im looking at getting V12 to play around with in the future for a fantasy type roleplaying game. I would love to see how well I can use the terrain to make large rolling hills with paths and roads. I think it will suit the purpose perfectly.
Brendan/Duel
#26
As for texturing in the game... it could be better, I agree. But alot of what you are probably seeing are textures that were applied by functions rather than by hand... The terrains in T2 are quite large so they've implemented special functions to do texturing for you using fractals, etc. If they were to take the time to make a map with perhaps newly designed textures (I don't particularly care for their 2D artistry) and then apply those textures by hand (which would agreeably take a long time) then you would probably see something very "pretty" come out of it. Now put in some water, a killer sky and cloud textures and then litter the landscape with billboarded foliage and it should look very good indeed.
I'm sure that you will see the V12 looking pretty different than T2 because they will have to remove all of the T2 artwork anyway. I'm looking forward to it myself...
And I'm very happy with the technology. Sacrifice and Giants look very impressive to me, but Giants is still slightly slow on my pretty awesome Geforce2 GTS 64MB ... and Sacrifice bugs me by altering the LOD to keep your fps constant. T2 doesn't have either of these problems. I turn everything to max and get framerates ranging between about 40 to 75 for the most part on a highly visible map. Granted ... it won't be top of the line next year when the Geforce3 titles start to appear, but maybe we can extend the engine by then to be better.
04/19/2001 (12:39 am)
I disagree with the theory that lots of foliage would hamper fps too badly in T2. If you look closely at the trees, etc in the game they are primarily rendered with billboards (sprites). This being the case, you should be able to litter the terrain with them without too big of a hit to your fps.As for texturing in the game... it could be better, I agree. But alot of what you are probably seeing are textures that were applied by functions rather than by hand... The terrains in T2 are quite large so they've implemented special functions to do texturing for you using fractals, etc. If they were to take the time to make a map with perhaps newly designed textures (I don't particularly care for their 2D artistry) and then apply those textures by hand (which would agreeably take a long time) then you would probably see something very "pretty" come out of it. Now put in some water, a killer sky and cloud textures and then litter the landscape with billboarded foliage and it should look very good indeed.
I'm sure that you will see the V12 looking pretty different than T2 because they will have to remove all of the T2 artwork anyway. I'm looking forward to it myself...
And I'm very happy with the technology. Sacrifice and Giants look very impressive to me, but Giants is still slightly slow on my pretty awesome Geforce2 GTS 64MB ... and Sacrifice bugs me by altering the LOD to keep your fps constant. T2 doesn't have either of these problems. I turn everything to max and get framerates ranging between about 40 to 75 for the most part on a highly visible map. Granted ... it won't be top of the line next year when the Geforce3 titles start to appear, but maybe we can extend the engine by then to be better.
Torque Owner Bryan Turner
I just took a look at the Motocross Madness 2 screenshots. I was not impressed. Perhaps we have a different sense of what 'pretty' is.
I also downloaded their terrain editor. The terrains are only 257x257! My engine wouldn't even break a sweat with that. Heck, I could do 6-pass multitexturing and still keep >30 FPS with something that small.
My 'small' heightmaps are 1025x1025, they only get larger from there. Not sure what Tribes 2 is using, but it feels larger than 257x257.
Tim/Rick/Mark: Does Tribes 2 use procedural detail synthesis to add high-frequency detail to a smaller height map? I recall reading a thread where someone mentioned this and was curious.
--Bryan