Forest Kit Animated trees with wind force?

#21 oh, forgotten to say: I realy like the new engine, and all the new nice things. The forest editor improve all the levels :)) ty for T3D...

#22

Quote:Sounds not easy to me... Is there any hope to get a nice large plant kit in near future?

Well, there are some fantastic vegetation kits out there right now, DexSoft vegetation models and
Sticks and Twigs to name a few, but I don't think any of them have been updated to use the Forest Editor wind functionality yet.

#23 Ok I made a willow tree and painted the vertices as suggested above, all good.

Now I've been playing with the settings under 'forest editor/meshes' and I seem to have the animations looking okay.

Two questions,:
-What exactly do all these settings do?
-How can I extend teh range at which the animations are visible?

Right now everything looks great if I stand right next to the trunk but as soon as I move outside of the actual canopy of the tree all is stillness again.
The other day I was watching a weeping willow from several hundred yards away in quite a high wind and I could observe the branches and fronds swaying nicely.

Also can I change the rate of flutter, it seems a bit jerky?

#24 Thanks, Justin. I didn't realize this wasn't documented yet. Until then:

Quote:-What exactly do all these settings do?

• shapeFile - path to mesh
• collidable - indicates whether or not the mesh uses collision
• breakable - (not implemented)
• radius - the canopy radius of this plant, in meters. This keeps plants from being placed too close to one another and having overlapping canopies. This value may need to be adjusted on larger plants when placing smaller plants under their canopy (placing bushes under a tree, for instance). This has no in-game functionality and only matters when placing forest items in your environment.
• mass - mass will generally affect how springy a plant is in response to wind or an explosion. Think of it as a weight on the end of a stick. Most of my trees are set to around 5, smaller plants down to 0.5.
• rigidity - how much the plant resists the wind force. Most of my trees are within 10-20, but some small grasses go down to 1.
• tightnessCoefficient - how much the plant resists bending. Between 0 and 1.
• dampingCoefficient - slows down the sway of the plant so it won't whip back and forth forever. Between 0 and 1.
• windScale - relative scale at which this plant is affected by wind. Between 0 and 1, but will almost always be set around 1.
• trunkBendScale - the amount that a plant will sway from top to bottom. This is very sensitive. I don't have any vegetation set higher than 0.03, and most are under 0.01.
• branchAmp - amount that a branch with sway up and down. Start well below 1.
• detailAmp - the amount of leaf flutter. Start well below 1, in the 0.05 range.
• detailFreq - the speed of leaf flutter. Start well below 1, in the 0.05 range.

I know it seems like a lot of these appear to be doing the same thing, but there are subtle differences. Word of warning: my numbers are just starting places. Your plants may differ due to the way you've colored their vertices or set the global wind emitter.

Quote:-How can I extend the range at which the animations are visible?

This is a user preference. You can alter it in the console by entering this: $pref::windEffectRadius = 25; That sets it to 25 meters around the camera, which is the default setting that you are seeing. Obviously this will affect performance, but you can cater it to your specs.

Quote:- Also can I change the rate of flutter, it seems a bit jerky?

As mentioned above, leaf flutter is controlled by the detailFreq setting. On trees I find something like 0.02 works well.

One note about Forest items... In addition to the global wind emitter, you can use a local wind emitter around anything that may create a local wind situation... waterfalls, helicopter rotors, big fans, jet engine exhaust, etc.

Justin, I'm very interested to see how the wind effects work on your willow... weeping willows are a very unique tree since their branches hang straight down. The Forest Kit wind effects weren't exactly built with that type of tree in mind, and hopefully you can find settings that work for you. I'd love to see video of this tree when you get it working! :)

#25 Thanks very much Russel that's very informative.
I've got the willow looking pretty good now, just need to tweak it a bit more, I'll post a video as soon as it's sorted.

#26 $pref::windEffectRadius This stuff should be in some type of document someplace. I spent many hours last week trying to figure this out, and gave up frustrated even after reading EVERY bit of info about the Forest Kit this websites search function would spit at me.

#27 I should also suggest that you fire a few grenades at your tree as you are setting up the wind parameters. Otherwise you might get some crazy results when you eventually do. ;)

#28 I've compiled all the wind effect info scattered throughout this thread into its own post, and added some imagery:

Forest Editor Wind Effects for Artists

Would love to hear feedback on anything I may have missed.

#29 Wow! That is a great Doc Russell Fincher! Thanks for taking the time.