Trees

Out of boredom, I made some simple trees, testing out
a mix of blocks and sprites.
It is quite simple. The leaves are just sprites facing the camera
all the time.

Not bad at all, but so many sprites will reduce the framerate. wouldn´t it be better to use one model per tree for all the sprites. Only problem will be the sorting.

I use quite a lot of sprites for one tree.
I would use a LOD then, so that all sprites get removed,
and only a fourth of the sprites (that are larger) get displayed.
All the way, until there is just one sprite per tree.

Putting this into a model gives you the problem, that the sprites dont
face the camera anymore. Beeing a usual tree-model then.

we hade some experiments with that system too, its really the best looking way to get a tree. try to use smaller sprites at the top /outsides and bigger/darker in the middle.

Richtig cool wird es, wenn sich die Sprites leicht nach rechts und links neigen, um etwas Wind zu simulieren und wenn sie Schatten auf die Umgebung werfen könnten. Dann hätte man die Funktionalität von Speed-Tree "nachgebaut".

Stimmt, die Sprites aussen sollten kleiner sein, und in der Mitte dunkler.
Ich hab auch nur ein recht simplen Sprite aus einem Foto erstellt.
Mit abwechselungsreicheren und der Astrichtung angepassten Sprites sieht es sogar noch
besser aus.
Theoretisch könnte man auch zufällige Trees erstellen. Dazu braucht man ein Baummodel,
welches man per vertexmanimulation im Skript verbiegt. Die Blatt-sprites werden dann
abhängig von der Form zufällig verteilt.
So könnt ohne viel Aufwand einen gerenderten Wald erstellen.
Ist zwar nicht ganz so gut wie "Speed-Tree" dann, aber kommt schon in die Richtung.

It would be interesting to make a 'snap to tree(branch)' script, where the lowest part of a sprite branch is the 'anchorpoint'. Just do a trace towards the nearest block and use it's normal, perhaps add a standard deviation to it's angle and rotation to make it less artificial. Could work, although it would be a lot of work for just trees off course.

Cheers

Die Trees sehen nicht schlecht aus, ich würde aber die Stämme nicht so gleichmässig Dick machen, noch vllt am unterem Ende noch ein Wenig die "Wurzeln" darstellen lassen...

cYa Sebastian

The treetrunk is quite primitive I know. It is mainly a test for displaying sprites as leaves.
I now work on making a modeltree-trunk, that is randomly deformed.
And the leaves get attached to the tree then.
A bit of "Speedtree for the poor".

Could end in a nice skript for including easy to make random/procedural Trees into a level.

You should have a look at 'alive trees 3d' from Terminal 26. I think they're using the same method for making the trees in their demo.
If their thingy will cost something then maybe you could provide a free alternative.

A user called Gafgar had started writing a similar script in late 2005. I dont know what has happended to it though (here is the thread).

You could try to randomize the sprites' roll once the game starts, to make the pattern repitition of the textures less noticeable!

Nice Demo on Terminal 26.
Yes I remember this post from Gafgar.
I just do this for fun. (allways wanted to do those kind of trees)
I am working on a "procedural" tree trunk generator.
And also on a method for LOD of the trees later.

Will be free then as an easy to implement skript. ... I did not see this method in any game project here jet.

If you did this just for fun, I can tell you that you've done a quite nice job with those trees
I which I could spend my "boring time" like that

Cheers

Frazzle

I am doing currently really boring work in counting vertecies of my "generated" tree-trunk.
Results later

Here first Pictures with random trees. Every tree looks (more or less) different.
The structure of the tree gets dynamically maniulated.
First test, will be improved.

Nice work. I only have two criticisements.

The trees do not cast shadows

And all the sections of leaves are pointing in the same direction. Even if it's not pointing away from the branch, I think you should give it some kind of "random" angle.

Here is the Free Tree Generator skript.

It uses a basic tree, and alters it properties randomly, to make
a variation of trees.

Just insert the model into the level, and include the wdl.

There could be a lot of more effort put into it. So see yourself what you can
alter. For example a windanimation is relatively easy to make.

Also the treemodel is quite simple, so look at the technique I used, and create
an improved one.

This skript uses bone animation, so unfortunatly it is only useful for Com and Pro.


tree_generator.zip 2.8 MB

Indeed, the tree demo is beautiful, but on the other hand it is extremely slow. I had "just" 30 fps on my machine and this is way too "expensive". I would need at least 50. Nevertheless, it looks very promising. Maybe they port it to LiteC and A7 when it comes out, so that it beenfits from the new renderer.

@Damocles: why do you apply an alpha value onto some of your sprites? This doesnt look good at all. Beside, nice thing.

I'm in the need of (many) good looking tree models. So, I tried different programs and trials. Its a bad situation at all: most programs suck for game development. Some are good, but then they do not offer enough possibilities to customize the tree.

I have to decide wether I buy premade models or a software so that I can generate my own. The most yet effective software for game development I came across is called "tree[d]". It is written by the maker of gile[s] and is free, though, you can only read these files with gile[s]. So if you own a gile[s] license, its great for you. Gile[s] can save all meshes to other formats, so gile[s] would be the converter for these trees.

Here is a GIF animation I captured: this is a tree I made with a few clicks with the preset textures and sprites and it looks cool.



Well, currently gile[s] 2 is in development and since A7 will handle different UV sets gile[s] will be a great tool for 3rd party illumination (radiosity!). I dont know if I buy this with the power to use tree[d] or if I buy premade models from loopix, terminal26 and so on.

Uhm.. I dont know. But I'm sure that I won't use a slow method since I plan to make heavy use of trees and plants. Sprite entities are too slow and I can't rely on a plugin that isnt ported yet to liteC (that terminal26 thing and/or Sphere2).

Well, I included quite a lot of trees, and quite a lot of sprites per tree.
There could be less sprites per tree, and also a LOD, that cuts of a percentage or the spites in the distance.
The alpha value just looked better, making the single sprites look less "obvious",
when many sprites couple it looks smoother.

This is not a fully tuned demo, it should mainly show using
sprites as leaves, and a boneanimation to create dynamic variance in the trees.

With a decent LOD, it can be much faster, but I dont want to do too much work on that.

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The most yet effective software for game development I came across is called "tree[d]".

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Thanks for this info.

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Well, currently gile[s] 2 is in development and since A7 will handle different UV sets...

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This is interesting. Are you sure about that? I did not see something like that at the beta site. Even at the forecast site I could not find infos about a second uv-set.

But it would be a really cool thing for the future.