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[Jagerbomber]

http://kotaku.com/5891620/how-to-make-terrific-video-game-tree-a-video-demonstration

www.speedtree.com

[ZeosPantera]

End of the video .. If you need trees, you need speedtree.

Get speed tree.. (*$#()Speedtree.. It can suck my root system!

Procedural trees ftw. And better animations too.

[angrypig]

Hmmm, if you need forest, you need Outerra.

[ZeosPantera]

Not impressive enough.. MORE TREES!

Not sure what is missing in those shots.. Maybe some distinction between individual leaves. Looks like a Bob Ross painting.

Also have to ask. Why did you choose a completely different tree than the millions of pine trees you already have?

[angrypig]

Yes it is WIP and what is missing there is ambient occlusion. The AO is not so important inside the forest but if you look at the forest from the top the lighting is too uniform.

I have chose the maple tree because in my opinion it is harder to render this kind of tree in such numbers. And personaly i wanted some change, because spruce trees are in Outerra for 3 years without any change.

[ZeosPantera]

Redwood.

[Luishi5k0]

Are you talking about SSAO in real time in Outerra?
Also, I'm not sure how your shadow system works exactly, and if it is meant for handling a lot of shadows, but do you plan on having tree shadows eventually? I think that would look fantastic! Here is a screenshot of Crysis with dynamic tree shadows:


Or I suppose you could do non-dynamic ones like Oblivion did for their tree shadows. Still looked a whole lot better than none:




EDIT: Though after thinking about it, even if you JUST went with SSAO it would still look pretty darn good since you are just using ambient lighting in the forests right now.

Although SSAO is hard on graphics cards... depending on which system of it you use. I'd still prefer direct shadows.

EDIT2: And because I just KNOW you all want to read more on SSAO and HBAO, I will give you this: http://www.nvidia.com/object/siggraph-2008-HBAO.html

[angrypig]

Redwood.

Redwood is not much different from other trees it is just bigger.

[angrypig]

Are you talking about SSAO in real time in Outerra?

The SSAO is not the best ambient occlusion method for trees and as you pointed out it is expensive but we will probably use it later in some form because it is good for other kind of objects.

The tree AO will be combination of pre-computed values and clever approximation. In the first picture I posted here there is AO on branches but not on leaves.

[Luishi5k0]

Pre-computed sounds great. I can't wait to see some of those 3d trees in action. Would you say that getting 3d trees in is a high priority and we should expect it soon, or rather something that we'll see more of in the future?

[angrypig]

The first version of 3D trees is almost ready as you can see on screenshots. But we want to add support for more tree types and do a few performance optimization before release.

[ZeosPantera]

Will the trees be more dense then the current billboards?

[Jagerbomber]

I'd say the new trees look decent from the top, but the trunks are way too skinny and boring looking.

[ZeosPantera]

We want more fatties! FAT TREES  FAT TREES  !!

[angrypig]

I'd say the new trees look decent from the top, but the trunks are way too skinny and boring looking.

Yes, the reality is sometimes boring.