by 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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