@Thread Group

So part of the issue here is a lack of definition to the problem.

I mean - how to make lots of grass/trees is not The actual problem.?!
for example - Last night I covered a level and terrain (small.hmp), size of 1200x1200 in a clip field of the same size, with fields of waving grass. I ran a smooth 60 fps at x1080 HD . I used a grouped grass model that had (almost) 9,000 verts each. And I ran it through the (minor twitched) animTree shader.

So - We need to understand each part of the problem. See in a 1200x1200 level-box I can run grass but in a 12,000 x 12,000 -> lol fields of grass kill fps and must be made into patches of grass. Also we have to account for differences in cpu+gpu+ram+vram. It's not just a limit of model/poly size count on the engine, the gpu plays it's part in that.

So the better we can define and box-in the problem, is the only way we can solve it.

@ Dooley, I am current running a group grass made out of "stands" like in your post above. Baking the image with normal and specular data can help in the final look. Using many skins you can have a shader that runs bump mapping on it, that can help. In the end how much focus is the grass really getting? The games tend to have more focus elsewhere. When I play games like (shadow warrior), many times I do play session just to look at the level, because I miss so much beauty in full-run-and-gun play sessions.

@CocaCola - I've use the hair system in 3dsmax to make grass. The process is to covert the grass patch to geometry, then run it through a polygon reducer. You can end up with a low poly model, that way. However, you can also leave it high poly -> then render it both as image and normal map. From there you can use the rendered images in the "stands" like Dooley did.


EDIT - pictures all at 1080 HD and all running at 60 fps (sorry I could capture the fraps fps counter)
edit-> all grass is using the animTree shader( I did a tweak to it)
Sorry I've not the gift for art... A little time would help as I did this grass model quick and dirty.

They are
bare
normal
double -> grass models overlap by using 2x in the space
insane4x-> grass models overlap by place 4-times as many in the level area