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[angrypig]

Here is a short video with the latest version of trees, let's say version 0.3  . There is still a lot of work to make it ready for the demo. But not so much as with the unlimited detail tech

Here is the basic info about the tree rendering:

- 3D trees are enabled at the distance of 250 meters, this will be variable in the future and will depend on how many trees in what quality are being rendered in total.

- the generator also produces billboard textures from various angles for more distant trees (not used yet)

- there is a bug with 3d leaves - they are incorrectly positioned

- video was captured in realtime as usually, on my Nvidia 460 1GB in Full-HD resolution at 30 FPS

- not all optimization are implemented yet, but in current state the FPS in Full-HD resolution in this scenario is 50 to 65

-  in the worst case there can be up to 500 3D trees in the view. Trees are currently split into 7 LODs, the highest LOD0 has 15,000 branches and 15,000 leaves. This amount of detail is too high for a forest, but it will be used on standalone trees. In forest I am expecting the highest detail to be around 7,000 branches and the same number for the leaves.

- btw flying in such low altitude, a few meters above trees is the worst case, because leaves are close and culling for groups of leaves is not working properly yet

- and I will have to do something with the distant thin branches that pop up sometimes, which is annoying during such low flight. In normal cases it is usually not recognizable.

- and I almost forgot to mention that we switched our anti-aliasing method from MSAA to FXAA. A blog post about that will follow soon, together with comparison screenshots.

[C. Shawn Smith]

Once again, I'm rendered (pun intended) speechless.

Question: How do the 3d trees react if you place an object like a building or road through a forest such as this?  In the previous road creation video, you can see the initial -- for lack of a better word -- rewrite of the affected terrain, and watch the trees disappear to make way for the road (I think it was most prevalent in the banked roads video).

I foresee a 2011 Retrospective Video with this clip

[Redrobes]

Nice - liking very much ! Is there any way to get a global fractal parameter to alter the absolute green colour of the trees ? Maybe a brightness or some kind of hue change to give them a bit of variance. Some kind of luminosity modulation based on tree position maybe ? I think the effect them would be highly realistic - not that its all that far off already.

[sniperwolfpk5]

wow . The most realistic trees i ever seen in a game engine. This engine will revolutionize future games.  Angrypig it will be gr8 if you make a movie that shows complete tree rounding a camera around. Sorry for my bad english

[Dmytro Lyakh]

DEMO! DEMO! DEMO!

[monks]

Awesome! I'm imagining flying on the back of a dragon...I've been reduced to childlike fantasies again   ...yes, the variation in hue in the canopy and also some enviromental sound would make a big difference. It's gonna be a very large slavering dog's boludas!

monks

[RaikoRaufoss]

Outerra just keeps getting better and better.

[ZeosPantera]

I think its time for a test (drive) though the woods. With roads or no roads.. All the better. I suspect the shadows haven't been worked out 100% at ground level yet.

Also any chance of uploading the 1080p version somewhere for direct download. It looks like Youtube has put this through the ringer.

[knackered]

jeez, what a bunch of sycophants.
the trees look ok, but it's hard to tell because of the video quality....sigh....once again, we need a demo - the videos don't allow us to come to an informed verdict. This project is the most hyped tech project i've ever come across on the internet without any form of demo ever having been released.
I notice you've chosen a flight path that (almost completely) hides the huge band of dramatic colour change that happens at the switch of lod. I suppose this is the switch to billboards? and you say you're still using the old billboard texture which will be replaced by an imposter system in the future? presumably this will be another excuse to delay releasing a demo?

[ZeosPantera]

Wow knackered, wow.

[cameni]

and you say you're still using the old billboard texture which will be replaced by an imposter system in the future? presumably this will be another excuse to delay releasing a demo?

Tree generator already produces the billboards from the generated trees, but these weren't used yet, as was also written. The video tried to show the near tree range, and obviously we didn't want people's attention being drawn to the part that wasn't implemented yet, so yes, the flight path was carefully chosen. We apologize if it was poorly described.

As for the lamenting about hype and delays ... if people want a demo where 3D deciduous trees switch to coniferous ones in the distance, then no problem. Otherwise you simply have to wait, cause we are so damn slow even with coffee.

Stuff in development.

[angrypig]

Question: How do the 3d trees react if you place an object like a building or road through a forest such as this?

These 3D trees act exactly like our good old billboard trees because parameters like position and size are taken directly from them. I just render 3D tree with those parameters and with appropriate LOD. But not all values are properly incorporated into 3D trees and you can see it in video where billboards are darker. This is caused by one parameter that is telling that tree grows on unlit side of the hill.

I foresee a 2011 Retrospective Video with this clip

I hope we will have something better for that

[angrypig]

Is there any way to get a global fractal parameter to alter the absolute green colour of the trees ? Maybe a brightness or some kind of hue change to give them a bit of variance. Some kind of luminosity modulation based on tree position maybe ? I think the effect them would be highly realistic - not that its all that far off already.

A slight hue alteration is already there but the video compression hid it somewhat. But these kind of parameters needs some proper tuning because they were set for our old billboard tree texture. I will create some screen-shots later when i fix bugs that i meant in first post.

[angrypig]

I think its time for a test (drive) though the woods. With roads or no roads.. All the better.

Good idea for next video

I suspect the shadows haven't been worked out 100% at ground level yet.

There are no shadows yet, there is only the "ambient occlusion" that is darkening terrain under trees and inside the forest. We want to implement shadows for trees but it has to be done very carefully due to performance reasons. The quickest and probably the easiest way is to cast shadow from impostor textures, it is not accurate but can improve the experience factor a lot. The second stage could be to cast shadows from real branches and cluster textures with leaves in some detail.

Also any chance of uploading the 1080p version somewhere for direct download. It looks like Youtube has put this through the ringer.

perhaps

[angrypig]

Also any chance of uploading the 1080p version somewhere for direct download. It looks like Youtube has put this through the ringer.

Here is the direct link to video http://outerra.com/videos/trees11_hq.avi