Plan for Melv May
by Melv May · 08/07/2002 (11:03 am) · 7 comments
I was intending to finish up my fluid rendering early this week because I am off work but I got kicked into action when I saw how different the terrain looked with foliage on it. Take a look at Doyoon Kims Plan as he has just updated his site with a new executable incorporating foliage.
After some discussions from Doyoons Dev Snapshot I decided to create something myself and took up the challenge. 8)
Here is my fxFoliageReplicator for you to play with.
All this is research and I want to look at using actual meshes for the foliage next. In the end we may end up with a hybrid of Doyoons, Phil Carlisle and my work, who knows?
I shall be getting back to the fluid rendering in the morning. ;)
- Melv.
After some discussions from Doyoons Dev Snapshot I decided to create something myself and took up the challenge. 8)
Here is my fxFoliageReplicator for you to play with.
All this is research and I want to look at using actual meshes for the foliage next. In the end we may end up with a hybrid of Doyoons, Phil Carlisle and my work, who knows?
I shall be getting back to the fluid rendering in the morning. ;)
- Melv.
About the author
#2
As for mine, Phil suggested using a mask texture which would be great but would take more time and changes to integrate everything into the Terrain Editor. Btw, I never really intended to do real-time grass (just random shrubs) but got a little carried away with the screenshots :).
08/07/2002 (11:21 am)
Hey, the foliage replicator will work great as is once you get mesh support in there. (Especially for that guy working on a game set on a farm? :) )As for mine, Phil suggested using a mask texture which would be great but would take more time and changes to integrate everything into the Terrain Editor. Btw, I never really intended to do real-time grass (just random shrubs) but got a little carried away with the screenshots :).
#3
Grass is good too, though. I can be patient.
It's all looking very good.
-David
08/07/2002 (11:40 am)
I was kinda waiting for the fuild rendering to be finalized so I could incorporate that... ;-)Grass is good too, though. I can be patient.
It's all looking very good.
-David
#4
@Doyoon: Yeah, some kind sole is working on some meshes for me to test so I will have a look at that asap.
@David: I'm back on the ocean wave in the morning, promise. ;)
I find it generally a good thing to mix-up projects as it keeps my mind active.
- Melv.
08/07/2002 (12:54 pm)
Doyoons stuff is more for total coverage of the terrain and mine is for targetted areas so a blend of the two could be great.@Doyoon: Yeah, some kind sole is working on some meshes for me to test so I will have a look at that asap.
@David: I'm back on the ocean wave in the morning, promise. ;)
I find it generally a good thing to mix-up projects as it keeps my mind active.
- Melv.
#5
What about setting it up so we can specify that a certain foliage mesh/billboard will be created over a certain terrain texture?
That way, we could just make the association -- this green grass texture with this set of foliage, say a 'grassy meadow' set, etc -- and then the only work we'd do is in texturing.
I think it's a kind of logical 'next step', from an ease-of-use standpoint. I was just thinking about what you wrote above, about how one solution is to have foliage cover everything and another is to place 'areas' of foliage. But I think that if you tie foliage to a terrain texture, or allow us to define a 'material' that includes a texture and associated properties, you'll have gone that extra step from providing an additional tool to making a real Engine Feature.
Keep up the good work you guys, you're all great.
08/10/2002 (1:18 am)
I have an idea.What about setting it up so we can specify that a certain foliage mesh/billboard will be created over a certain terrain texture?
That way, we could just make the association -- this green grass texture with this set of foliage, say a 'grassy meadow' set, etc -- and then the only work we'd do is in texturing.
I think it's a kind of logical 'next step', from an ease-of-use standpoint. I was just thinking about what you wrote above, about how one solution is to have foliage cover everything and another is to place 'areas' of foliage. But I think that if you tie foliage to a terrain texture, or allow us to define a 'material' that includes a texture and associated properties, you'll have gone that extra step from providing an additional tool to making a real Engine Feature.
Keep up the good work you guys, you're all great.
#6
10/29/2002 (7:36 am)
Melv, maybe you could impliment "Sort Grass (Back To Front)" that Doyoon has in the F5 dialog? It makes it almost look like there's twice as much grass there :)
#7
Not sure how sorting can make it look like there's twice as much grass. The grass volume is really related to the texture itself, it's size and obviously the actual quantity of billboards.
I really wanted to stay away from sorting the billboards as this can be a major hit on FPS. I use depth-buffer coupled with an alpha-test. Perhaps now that the system uses a quad-tree the sorting performance won't be so bad.
I've noticed on lots of screenshots that use the fxfoliagereplicator, not many people have used the alpha clip function that allows you to remove the transparent halo that appears around interpolated transparent regions.
This becomes most apparent when a large cluster of this artifact is together and results in the background showing through. Setting the Alpha field value would resolve this issue.
I want to revisit this code so perhaps I should do as you say and at least give sorting a chance and see how much it affects the FPS.
All the best,
- Melv.
10/29/2002 (8:23 am)
Martin,Not sure how sorting can make it look like there's twice as much grass. The grass volume is really related to the texture itself, it's size and obviously the actual quantity of billboards.
I really wanted to stay away from sorting the billboards as this can be a major hit on FPS. I use depth-buffer coupled with an alpha-test. Perhaps now that the system uses a quad-tree the sorting performance won't be so bad.
I've noticed on lots of screenshots that use the fxfoliagereplicator, not many people have used the alpha clip function that allows you to remove the transparent halo that appears around interpolated transparent regions.
This becomes most apparent when a large cluster of this artifact is together and results in the background showing through. Setting the Alpha field value would resolve this issue.
I want to revisit this code so perhaps I should do as you say and at least give sorting a chance and see how much it affects the FPS.
All the best,
- Melv.
Torque Owner Sabrecyd
Seriously, both of the things you're working on now will be great to use with the TGE. Have you looked at Doyoon's grass demo download? Check out the options/F5 thing he has in there. That's cool. You'd probably like it too I think.