Why even contemplate SpeedTree?

[Tubbly]

I AM SUGGESTING MY OPINION



IMPLEMENT IT!

Ive heard that the Devs are thinking about implementing SpeedTree, I have personally created a game with the Unreal Engine and I implemented SpeedTree (Video below), I came across no problems at all and I have to say its a very nice feature, I really dont see why they cant implement it, although they have been working on their own trees for a long time the trees given in SpeedTree are very realistic and are somewhat easy to make. Here Is a video of what speedtree is, for some of you who dont know what it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g10NDl6HdD4

Here Is a video of my own Map I made with the Unreal Engine, If some of you dont believe me . (I used UDK so I auto have the gun from Unreal tournament 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUrVszvDSMU

[NizeGuy]

Interesting.

Is your game a seamless, open world? ^^

[Tizio]

Why they can't? How many fps you have on max details now in a city or in a spot with other 30 people?

I don't think so much. speedtree will make it worse.

[Andi89]

Originally Posted by Hanai Bloodscar

Is your game a seamless, open world Game for thousands of players?

fix'd^^

Srsly, do you believe implementation in an MMO is that easy?
you have to take into account bigger battles with 100+ people which should be possible at some point.

[Sorus]

Common guys, speedtree isnt new technology, just cus theyre going to be using ST5 doesnt mean its got to have high poly count trees, infact ST uses clever techniques and so a higher detailed tree will probably have a lower poly count a be graphicaly nicer than what is ingame currently.

For an example Dark ages of camelot used Speedtree 3 from their 3rd expansion onwards and that was a seamless openworld and battles were with hundreds of people. Just cus theyre using ST5 doesnt mean they have to use it to make the trees and foliage look as nice as they do in a limited zoned 1 player game, but it should give them the scope to make things better looking and better performing than they are now.

Simply put theres no reason not to use ST5 over current models IMO, just dont expect the trees to look as good as those in 1 player vids, but expect them to look better than whats in now.

[Tubbly]

Originally Posted by t00ns

You are a huge dick. And a idiot.

HEY GAIZ, why dont we create pointless cusses at people who suggest their opinions on forums! oh wait...

[Dean478]

Originally Posted by Hanai Bloodscar

Interesting.

Is your game a seamless, open world? ^^

Given that the trees are pretty static, does it really matter? Why not just make it a clientside effect, surely they don't have to have sync tree swaying?

If it's a performance hit for someone can't they just tone down the quality until it resembles what we have now?

[Tubbly]

Originally Posted by Andi89

fix'd^^

Srsly, do you believe implementation in an MMO is that easy?
you have to take into account bigger battles with 100+ people which should be possible at some point.

I wasnt saying implementing it is easy, I was saying creating the tree's are. Fair enough that it could cause some lag, I somewhat agree to that.

[forcem]

Why dont SV hire you? you are great, you can implemented all that SV dont know how to do!! pls put the ST5.2 and the UO inventory plsss.


meh...

[Dementia]

Speed Tree was tested before, and removed because of the huge impact on fps at the time. Now things have changed (optimization, better textures, etc), and they will be evaluating it again.

[Artorius]

Originally Posted by Sorus

Common guys, speedtree isnt new technology, just cus theyre going to be using ST5 doesnt mean its got to have high poly count trees, infact ST uses clever techniques and so a higher detailed tree will probably have a lower poly count a be graphicaly nicer than what is ingame currently.

For an example Dark ages of camelot used Speedtree 3 from their 3rd expansion onwards and that was a seamless openworld and battles were with hundreds of people. Just cus theyre using ST5 doesnt mean they have to use it to make the trees and foliage look as nice as they do in a limited zoned 1 player game, but it should give them the scope to make things better looking and better performing than they are now.

Simply put theres no reason not to use ST5 over current models IMO, just dont expect the trees to look as good as those in 1 player vids, but expect them to look better than whats in now.

Anyway, arn't that kind of stuff the kind of stuff people should be able to scale on their end in video options if they have the PC to run it...

In Age of Conan, with video options, we can choose draw distance of peoples, npcs, if the grass will move or not, dx9 or 10, tons of stuff.

Now, I don't agree with options that give you an advantage over other peoples if you have a better PC like the distance at which you can see other people but we could certainly get more options about the graphics quality.

[Wiggin]

Originally Posted by Tubbly

I AM SUGGESTING MY OPINION



IMPLEMENT IT!

Ive heard that the Devs are thinking about implementing SpeedTree, I have personally created a game with the Unreal Engine and I implemented SpeedTree (Video below), I came across no problems at all and I have to say its a very nice feature, I really dont see why they cant implement it, although they have been working on their own trees for a long time the trees given in SpeedTree are very realistic and are somewhat easy to make. Here Is a video of what speedtree is, for some of you who dont know what it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g10NDl6HdD4

Here Is a video of my own Map I made with the Unreal Engine, If some of you dont believe me . (I used UDK so I auto have the gun from Unreal tournament 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUrVszvDSMU

failpost

soo many things wrong with this...

[Paratus]

Using SpeedTree in a world like your small UDK map, and in a huge environment like that in MO are VERY different things. There can be dozens and dozens of trees on screen at any given time. You will also never get ST trees to come close to the performance of static meshes. First, they're going to be far higher triangle/poly counts because of the way the leaves are rendered. Second, they're skeletal and not static, with dynamic animation. Third, they're lit differently and lighting/shading costs a lot more on a speedtree than a static mesh.

ST WILL have a bigger performance hit vs the current trees. SV's job now is just determining if that performance hit is worth it in the end.

But damn, it's REALLY not as easy as you make it sound. Making a map in the UDK is a very different thing. I mean, the Nave map when all streamed would be bigger than the entire map grid in the UDK.

[Henrik Nystrom]

Originally Posted by Tubbly

I AM SUGGESTING MY OPINION



IMPLEMENT IT!

Ive heard that the Devs are thinking about implementing SpeedTree, I have personally created a game with the Unreal Engine and I implemented SpeedTree (Video below), I came across no problems at all and I have to say its a very nice feature, I really dont see why they cant implement it, although they have been working on their own trees for a long time the trees given in SpeedTree are very realistic and are somewhat easy to make. Here Is a video of what speedtree is, for some of you who dont know what it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g10NDl6HdD4

Here Is a video of my own Map I made with the Unreal Engine, If some of you dont believe me . (I used UDK so I auto have the gun from Unreal tournament 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUrVszvDSMU

It's not as simply as just adding SpeedTree into MO, just because the third party companies shows a neat movie of some fast/easy doing stuff. Thats a selling movie you are refering to from ST, yes that actually works great, when it comes to create a tree with that tool next step is to being able to use it in the game. To actually start using it is another thing and requires a few things to work in a live game such as MO.
As Ive mentioned before, this is not a game running on UE3 only (UE3 renders the visuals).
It is a MMORPG, I cant stress that word enough, everything have to work with a large scale non instanced, seamless world, and yes support thousands of trees, objects, players, animals, etc. Everything we add into this game need to be be used in a proper way or you will get 5 fps to an instant client crash.

But like we said in the Epic update, we will now be able to evaluate latest speed tree, which Epic Games US have integrated into the UE3 build we will be using now. Which means it will be at least 10 times more efficient with ST than our current build we are moving from. So we are very excited to see if it will be enough to use ST 5 in a large scale.

Like we can see from your example game it is alreadyrunning in a very low fps, or its just a low end computer?
That in a small map 1 player with some enviroment.

If we were to add a terrain that cannot be fit on UE3 orginal grid (insane size), add a few hundreds creatures, resource nodes and lots of scripts/codes linked to game features and about 20 players on the screen and see what happens. Now we may to get to grasp what a MMOrpg does more than running a smal - large map. We have still not even got to add a network solution to handle real players above 200 and traffic between them, codes server and players.

What you can do in a small scale game similar to this example game is that you can allocate all the memory on the level and all usage of all objects/units, thats very very hard in a mmorpg like MO, if you want things in the game to look diffrerent that is.

Your example game looks good thou keep it up!

Edit* Ad Paratus, just saw you were in before me.. but oh well

[Tubbly]

Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom

It's not as simply as just adding SpeedTree into MO, just because the third party companies shows a neat movie of some fast/easy doing stuff. Thats a selling movie you are refering to from ST, yes that actually works great, when it comes to create a tree with that tool next step is to being able to use it in the game. To actually start using it is another thing and requires a few things to work in a live game such as MO.
As Ive mentioned before, this is not a game running on UE3 only (UE3 renders the visuals).
It is a MMORPG, I cant stress that word enough, everything have to work with a large scale non instanced, seamless world, and yes support thousands of trees, objects, players, animals, etc. Everything we add into this game need to be be used in a proper way or you will get 5 fps to an instant client crash.

But like we said in the Epic update, we will now be able to evaluate latest speed tree, which Epic Games US have integrated into the UE3 build we will be using now. Which means it will be at least 10 times more efficient with ST than our current build we are moving from. So we are very excited to see if it will be enough to use ST 5 in a large scale.

Like we can see from your example game it is alreadyrunning in a very low fps, or its just a low end computer?
That in a small map 1 player with some enviroment.

If we were to add a terrain that cannot be fit on UE3 orginal grid (insane size), add a few hundreds creatures, resource nodes and lots of scripts/codes linked to game features and about 20 players on the screen and see what happens. Now we may to get to grasp what a MMOrpg does more than running a smal - large map. We have still not even got to add a network solution to handle real players above 200 and traffic between them, codes server and players.

What you can do in a small scale game similar to this example game is that you can allocate all the memory on the level and all usage of all objects/units, thats very very hard in a mmorpg like MO, if you want things in the game to look diffrerent that is.

Your example game looks good thou keep it up!

Edit* Ad Paratus, just saw you were in before me.. but oh well

+

Originally Posted by Paratus

Using SpeedTree in a world like your small UDK map, and in a huge environment like that in MO are VERY different things. There can be dozens and dozens of trees on screen at any given time. You will also never get ST trees to come close to the performance of static meshes. First, they're going to be far higher triangle/poly counts because of the way the leaves are rendered. Second, they're skeletal and not static, with dynamic animation. Third, they're lit differently and lighting/shading costs a lot more on a speedtree than a static mesh.

ST WILL have a bigger performance hit vs the current trees. SV's job now is just determining if that performance hit is worth it in the end.

But damn, it's REALLY not as easy as you make it sound. Making a map in the UDK is a very different thing. I mean, the Nave map when all streamed would be bigger than the entire map grid in the UDK.

OMGZ DEVS TALKING TO ME OMGZ I THINK IM GONNA FAINT!! :OOO
but yeh.. :P

I may have gone wrong about this actually, I never really thought about the user's fps rofl. I see what you guys mean, Im not sure on this but are you currently streaming levels? If your not, wouldnt that help reduce the lag? *so ive heard*

Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom

Your example game looks good thou keep it up!

Thanks! could say the same to your game :P

[Katana622]

Well even if you can't use speed tree, you say the new patch from epic makes your build more efficient. Does that mean that you can update the trees even without speed tree to nicer ones ?(more cost then current trees, less then st5)

I really don't care if you use speed tree or not, only that some of the trees look a bit better

[adrala]

From the under development section:

Week 2: September 6th
· Trees of Myrland get a visual update
· Fishing
· Texture optimization
· Option to aim up and down and move siege weapons
· New creatures
· Alarm Bell on keeps
· New "pickables" including stones for siege weapons
· Craftable Mount gear
· Possibility to let siege weapons stay in the world until they are destroyed
· Basic Alliance option

[Bonestorm]

I wouldn't mind the world being semi-instanced.. just split it in two and do it in a way that prevents fighting near that line A ferry or somethin. If it would improve anything at least.

[Pancake Effct]

What happened to the grass in beta? Is that ever going to be implemented again? I never had a problem regarding frame rate or anything. Why they take it out?

[Paratus]

Originally Posted by Katana622

Well even if you can't use speed tree, you say the new patch from epic makes your build more efficient. Does that mean that you can update the trees even without speed tree to nicer ones ?(more cost then current trees, less then st5)

I think that's exactly what's expected in one of the next updates. Maybe not for all the trees, though.

Originally Posted by killing karma

What happened to the grass in beta? Is that ever going to be implemented again? I never had a problem regarding frame rate or anything. Why they take it out?

I believe it's mostly a matter of time. They can place grass, but it has to be placed with volumes manually, by hand. I guess it's Andreas who just needs time!

[ltankhsd]

Originally Posted by Paratus

I think that's exactly what's expected in one of the next updates. Maybe not for all the trees, though.



I believe it's mostly a matter of time. They can place grass, but it has to be placed with volumes manually, by hand. I guess it's Andreas who just needs time!

Grass and ground cover is certainly something I miss a lot.

[Pancake Effct]

Originally Posted by Paratus

I think that's exactly what's expected in one of the next updates. Maybe not for all the trees, though.



I believe it's mostly a matter of time. They can place grass, but it has to be placed with volumes manually, by hand. I guess it's Andreas who just needs time!

during beta they had it so it was everywhere. A lot of people didn't like how the radius for it was really small though, it kind of grew up around your feet.

They got rid of it after being in for only a couple weeks.