Foilage

Foilage

Postby charlie » 08 Feb 2011, 20:52

I noticed (from videos) that there's little or no foilage in the game (depends on how you classify the occasional shrub).

Is there any merit to adding foilage such as trees, rocks, and other natural obstacles? They could burn, crash, and look pretty but would they add to the game?

I would like to see foilage in the game but I can't put forth a gameplay reason for it. It would just look nice to see a mech marauding through trees.
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Re: Foilage

Postby hc » 09 Feb 2011, 13:21

Small/few foliage adds a lot to an otherwise empty scene.
There is no game merit at this point other than giving minimal visual cover and looking better than an empty desert.
Actually there are two kinds of trees in the game currently: Just visible and collideable ones.
Collideable ones may give you real firing cover.

Eventually there may be more foliage - it's mainly a matter of performance right now. Most of the foliage is placed randomly/procedurally in realtime (those without collision) and may be pushed upwards until your framerate drops. Eventually there may be means to control where foliage density is risen/lowered. Use of shader technology may rise those capabilities.

And trees will get an overhaul sometime replacing (concave!!) polygon leafs with texturing - this may look better, perform better and add more visual cover. BTW this raises another question: Is it fun to have an all-seeing-radar? Is it better to have some line-of-sight/stealthiness for the radar? And special foliage may disturb the radar's line-of-sight.

Burning and smoking trees would be nice of course - as would burning and smoking wrecks.
I think besides beauty the merits of foliage are cover, cover and cover from view and bullets + adding maneuvering difficulties.
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Re: Foilage

Postby hc » 21 Feb 2011, 19:20

Here are the new textured trees:
foliage.png
foliage.png (131.7 KiB) Viewed 13906 times

They aren't merely static flat cross billboards but sway in the wind (*) and give the feeling of volume, like in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaLoqps2XQk&feature=related

(*) just the leaves
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Re: Foilage

Postby hc » 30 Oct 2011, 21:40

Having a look at the previous screenshot I decided it was time for another one.
Maybe trees need bigger trunks?

Screenshot_20111030.png
Landscape overhaul:
Ground texture, tree/bark textures and some new plants at dawn.
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