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[Avi]

It's great to see the new biomes and tree species however, I want to ask if more work will be done on biomes with more plant species? The tree species don't change with change in altitude currently in outerra. Will this be looked upon in the future? Also, there are no trees where they should be in real life which makes many places barren and lifeless. Could the developers throw some light on these topics?

[KW71]

Hi, Avi!

The trees do change with altitude. A great example is island Maui, in Hawaii. When I heard this name, I used to think just about jungle, but indeed, if you look a satellite image, you'll notice many kind of biomes in that island, perhaps not perfect, but closely represented in OT. Go to th top of the island and you'll find coniferous; go slowly down to the beach and you'll notice how the species changes with altitud, finding tropical species in the zones with more rain precipitation, and other species in the driest ones.

See some pictures in google earth and you'll see what I mean.

We will keep adding species from time to time.

[Avi]

I noticed that and it's great 😃 however, in Asian regions (I mostly play in Nepal region because of the Himalayas) the trees don't change with altitude. The same trees populate the high mountains that populate the lower regions. It really doesn't look good at all. Perhaps this could be fixed? ☺

[HiFlyer]

I just wonder how much effort should go into all this. Surely outerra trees must become fully 3d at some point.......

[Acetone]

I don't think there will ever be 3D tree only vegetation. It will be a waste of detail since the current billboards look greats except when you reach less than 100m distance or are exactly above. In these cases, yes, more detailed models will be necessary, but it's a good thing to improve the billboards first, since they are the base.
Even if it lack species, the system is a good start : a biome map with global temperatures and humidity levels for the whole earth (in user/data/earth2/_bio) + custom information in a csv file made by KW71 for each species (in outerra/anteworld/textures/trees/bb/trees_distribution.tsv).
BTW, you can check what species are used and at what % using shift+tab. If you see a area with weird distribution (a single type of tree for example) check that and you may notice a 0% match reading for all species. It means that there are no species for this climate range yet

[KW71]

Well, trees do not change because it is higher or lower terrain per se, but because the temp variation between altitudes. I saw Nepal and I noticed there are tree variations, although is not as noticieable as in other locations. As I see it, might be due  lack of species that can grow under that temperature and precipitation conditions... Should be better when we have more.

By the way, Avi,

Also, there are no trees where they should be in real life which makes many places barren and lifeless.

try to lower to 0 the forest threshold... That make a great  difference in most locations.

[aWac9]

say that the contribution of KW71 is a great job,, thank you very much.
in 2008, this video was published outerra,, there were no trees, and everything was green moss .. The video had some success, and even there were 6 daredevils users who clicked "like".
Then came what we see today,,,, a great engine, where many things remain to be done, and certainly will be, but now they are not a priority.
But I am also of those who think we need to improve the trees, and I am convinced that the team outerra can make them. projects currently in the engineering computer graphics procedural getting really detailed tree models that use algorithms to generate universities, which are much cheaper than create them by hand like these guys,,, outerra eventually invent something new . ,, I hope all,,,, and every day it grows outerra, do not let us surprise.

I want my 3D trees, .... and.

[John514]

I don't think there will ever be 3D tree only vegetation. It will be a waste of detail since the current billboards look greats except when you reach less than 100m distance or are exactly above. In these cases, yes, more detailed models will be necessary, but it's a good thing to improve the billboards first, since they are the base.

The 3D trees will revert to billboards on a certain distance from the camera anyway so I think improvements to the current billboard system will not all go to waste.

[KW71]

Billboards must match the 3D model used... so that might not be the case.

[John514]

Replacing the textures to match the billboards should be the easiest of problems to solve. Considering people have done it already...