Tribes 2 lanscapes
by Brad Schick · in Torque Game Engine · 06/07/2001 (12:47 am) · 11 replies
I am looking at V12 because it handles outdoor maps better than any other engine I've seen. Black & White is close, but its maps are smaller (and the engine is not available as far as I know).
I've been playing Tribes 2 to see what V12 can do. It really looks great and performance is excellent on my new high end machine, except that the landscapes are rather barren. I understand T2 has more landscaping than T1, but it is still mostly empty.
Was this a game play decision or a technical/performance decision?
-Brad
I've been playing Tribes 2 to see what V12 can do. It really looks great and performance is excellent on my new high end machine, except that the landscapes are rather barren. I understand T2 has more landscaping than T1, but it is still mostly empty.
Was this a game play decision or a technical/performance decision?
-Brad
About the author
#2
However, the engine is in pre-beta stages and is quite costly.
06/10/2001 (3:00 pm)
If you take a look at the Turbine 2.0 engine (http://www.turbinegames.com) they are able to handel amazing terrain and trees all with a weather factor in there(IE: grass and trees sway with the wind)However, the engine is in pre-beta stages and is quite costly.
#3
Half the reason I'm interested in the V12 is to experiment a bit with real-time 3D graphics programing, learn by doing so to speak. Having the source will give me something to disect and go Frankenstien on. Exactly what I need.
The other half is following my dream. From the first time I ever played a video game, I knew I wanted to make them. Tried my hand at mod-making but rapidly became bored. I need source code to play with LOL
06/10/2001 (3:47 pm)
I've got a few ideas that could improve the way the V12 engine handles landscape objects (plants, rocks and the like). I don't really what to go into any detial until I've got my hands on the source though, until then I won't know which (if any) modification would be practical.... Let alone possible without completely rewriting the rendering engine, a task I don't want to even attempt, at least not in the begining (not with my programing background at any rate LOL).Half the reason I'm interested in the V12 is to experiment a bit with real-time 3D graphics programing, learn by doing so to speak. Having the source will give me something to disect and go Frankenstien on. Exactly what I need.
The other half is following my dream. From the first time I ever played a video game, I knew I wanted to make them. Tried my hand at mod-making but rapidly became bored. I need source code to play with LOL
#4
06/10/2001 (4:46 pm)
Which reminds me, Black and White is supposed to go open source. But considering their first patch was supposed to be out on "day one" and it still isn't even out yet, I doubt it will be any time soon.
#5
The idea we came up with was to build an area editor into the object editor.
By marking out a section on the map, trees, shrubs and plants will be generated inside that area with set distances from each other. The beauty of this from having the trees as part of the exported landscape or mesh is that it only loads 1 of each tree and multiplies it across the selected areas.
There will be 2 different models for each tree and plant. one that is a front on render (facing sprite) and another that is the full 3d version.
the trees that are placed in the editor are markers, all the trees within a certain radius from the player camera display the full 3d versions, as you move away from them they swap to the sprite version. This means in the distance you are drawing simple 2 poly (or 1 poly) trees and up close the higher poly versions. to avoid 'popping' when the trees swap you can make them alpha-fog into each other.
this technique has been used for many different games to create dense forests and environments. For a good example have a look at Carnivores2. the dinosaur hunter game, it had very nice forests.
If anyone has any other ideas along similar lines, post em here!
Caliban
06/10/2001 (5:04 pm)
I'm really interested to hear how other people will try and render things like forests and densly populated areas. Our team is working on a multiplayer RPG that will use dense forests and cities.The idea we came up with was to build an area editor into the object editor.
By marking out a section on the map, trees, shrubs and plants will be generated inside that area with set distances from each other. The beauty of this from having the trees as part of the exported landscape or mesh is that it only loads 1 of each tree and multiplies it across the selected areas.
There will be 2 different models for each tree and plant. one that is a front on render (facing sprite) and another that is the full 3d version.
the trees that are placed in the editor are markers, all the trees within a certain radius from the player camera display the full 3d versions, as you move away from them they swap to the sprite version. This means in the distance you are drawing simple 2 poly (or 1 poly) trees and up close the higher poly versions. to avoid 'popping' when the trees swap you can make them alpha-fog into each other.
this technique has been used for many different games to create dense forests and environments. For a good example have a look at Carnivores2. the dinosaur hunter game, it had very nice forests.
If anyone has any other ideas along similar lines, post em here!
Caliban
#6
06/10/2001 (11:45 pm)
Delta Force:Land Warrior uses that same approach for trees, have a billboard for far away then blend into a 3d version closer up, works quite well, i never notice it unless im looking right at a tree.
#7
Its a nice short cut, but very annoying if easily noticable.
06/11/2001 (2:49 pm)
Aye, AC did the same thing, they also used something like that on their building textures. Where from far away, you will see a window, but not inside with a low res texture, but as you got closer the texture switched and you now could see through the window.Its a nice short cut, but very annoying if easily noticable.
#8
06/16/2001 (11:52 am)
Has anybody seen the terrain/landscape rendering in Train Simulator? Not very fast, but with levels of over 150 miles in length, and trees, buildings, and lakes in between, it is pretty impressive. 
#9
All objects have varying levels of detail (including the terrain). The futher away the object, the lower the level of detail. A good engine will smoothly morph from one LOD to the next. You'll notice in Tribes2 the terrain "warping" as you approach an area. (I'm not knocking the engine... big thumbs up to the V12 developers)
A rock in the distance can be a simple plane or box with a low detail texture. The closer you get, the more detailed the texture and object become. (More detail meaning more polygons and higher resolution texuture)
When creating real-time sims (like games) have two things in mind. Keep the textures small and polygon count low.
Luckily we're in the age where we can have 1000+ polygons with detailed textures and get 60+ FPS on a typical video card... not long ago you couldn't have more than 100 polygons with low-res 8 bit textures and maintain 30 FPS.
06/25/2001 (9:06 am)
...this is known as LOD or "Level of Detail".All objects have varying levels of detail (including the terrain). The futher away the object, the lower the level of detail. A good engine will smoothly morph from one LOD to the next. You'll notice in Tribes2 the terrain "warping" as you approach an area. (I'm not knocking the engine... big thumbs up to the V12 developers)
A rock in the distance can be a simple plane or box with a low detail texture. The closer you get, the more detailed the texture and object become. (More detail meaning more polygons and higher resolution texuture)
When creating real-time sims (like games) have two things in mind. Keep the textures small and polygon count low.
Luckily we're in the age where we can have 1000+ polygons with detailed textures and get 60+ FPS on a typical video card... not long ago you couldn't have more than 100 polygons with low-res 8 bit textures and maintain 30 FPS.
#10
I just downloaded the demo to take a look at it. From what I saw in the files and ingame, the billboard that fades into a rendered tree at a closing distance is kinda cool. I downloaded the demo for Deer Avenger 4 (snazzy little budget title there heh) and noticed they have a similar thing going, but a better transition visually. We're going to have to try this with TSRR. Thanks for the info Tim. :)
08/24/2001 (12:16 am)
Quote:Trophy Hunting used the T2 (V12) engine and to avoid the overhead on rendering "generic" shapes, they wrote their own specialized "forest" manager/renderer. Having a specialized renderer allowed them to produce a lot more trees :) That code is not part of the v12 release though.
I just downloaded the demo to take a look at it. From what I saw in the files and ingame, the billboard that fades into a rendered tree at a closing distance is kinda cool. I downloaded the demo for Deer Avenger 4 (snazzy little budget title there heh) and noticed they have a similar thing going, but a better transition visually. We're going to have to try this with TSRR. Thanks for the info Tim. :)
#11
Tribes2 is a FPS game. These games rely heavily on a decent framerate to make accuarate decsions. often called 'twitch' games.
a 60fps is the target for these types of games.
However something like a rpg or similar that doest requite that instant twitch can afford to take a bigger framerate hit.
You could get away with alot of rpgs running at around 20-30fps.
I think its a design decision to keep the frames running acceptable on all machines intended.
08/24/2001 (3:02 am)
although i didnt read the other posts ill reply anyway.Tribes2 is a FPS game. These games rely heavily on a decent framerate to make accuarate decsions. often called 'twitch' games.
a 60fps is the target for these types of games.
However something like a rpg or similar that doest requite that instant twitch can afford to take a bigger framerate hit.
You could get away with alot of rpgs running at around 20-30fps.
I think its a design decision to keep the frames running acceptable on all machines intended.
Torque Owner Tim Gift
Trophy Hunting used the T2 (V12) engine and to avoid the overhead on rendering "generic" shapes, they wrote their own specialized "forest" manager/renderer. Having a specialized renderer allowed them to produce a lot more trees :) That code is not part of the v12 release though.