Trees, I don't get it.

[Alex_rcpilot]

According to the latest vids, those trees still look like "paper panels". It makes just too obvious a contrast at low altitude when you look down at your hi-res aircraft and the the cross-like trees beneath it.

 

I understand how much workload it's ganna be to render so many trees if they were extremely realistic like in ... say Crysis, but is what we have now the best result that we can come up with? How are trees treated in Need for Speed and GTR2...etc?

 

Just being curious, not making any suggestions.

[GGTharos]

Yes, this is the best possible at this time. Better trees when the new engine comes out.

[mvsgas]

I think we all need to remember that you can not have same quality of ground objects with a good aircraft simulator game. Remember that the computer hardware (GPU, RAM and CPU) on those other game, have different priorities. In flying game it has to create, AFAIK, like 50 mile of terrain and it has to calculate other stuff like avionics, flight models and even huge battle (in terms of the are the battle occupies) compared to games like ARMA or other shooting games. I relay doubt that a good racing simulator game the computer hardware has to do as many calculations as in a good flight simm. Beside I just want good game play and as good as it gets flight and avionics models.

[britgliderpilot]

I think we all need to remember that you can not have same quality of ground objects with a good aircraft simulator game. Remember that the computer hardware (GPU, RAM and CPU) on those other game, have different priorities. In flying game it has to create, AFAIK, like 50 mile of terrain and it has to calculate other stuff like avionics, flight models and even huge battle (in terms of the are the battle occupies) compared to games like ARMA or other shooting games. I relay doubt that a good racing simulator game the computer hardware has to do as many calculations as in a good flight simm. Beside I just want good game play and as good as it gets flight and avionics models.

 

 

Well put.

 

Fly a chopper in ArmA and watch the draw distance disappear . . .

[Wags]

Actually, we are in the process of updating the FAQ and here in one addition:

 

Q: Why is the DCS terrain not as detailed as other games like Battlefield II and Armed Assault?

 

A: The initial release of DCS (the Black Shark module) uses a modified version of The Fighter Collection Simulation Engine (TFCSE). This is the same engine we used for earlier entertainment and military-grade simulation products. This engine provides worlds that are much, much larger and much greater rendering distances. As such, object density cannot be as high or suffer significant frame rate slow downs. We believe the current DCS engine provides a good balance of large and diverse worlds with detailed graphics. As we develop our new DCS engine, we will increase terrain detail even further.

[Doggy]

A firm I'm working in is developing a golf sim with speedtrees used in. They looks really good but today one of developers reported me that it is still pretty much load for the hw. So they need to play more with a terrain texture to improve FPS and to keep these nice trees :)

When you compare the golf sim to the flight sim from action point of view... you'll get it

[Glowing_Amraam]

I'm pretty sure we'll see much more detailed trees, and so on, later on in the DCS series.

I guess they'll be done like alot of other games, by having really simple trees at long view distances, but once you get closer and closer, they fade into a much more detailed tree.

[Doggy]

That's exactly how speedtrees work but close/low altitude flybys at higher speed still have high performance demands. Next generation of GPUs surely will be one of solutions ;)

[Phantom_Mark]

Some investment into how you LOD your models would work wonders IMHO, you could have detail in the foreground and the existing sollution in the background etc......and hopefully at least collidable :smartass:

[Alex_rcpilot]

Thanks for your replies everybody. I took a flight this afternoon traveling back to Beijing, and started reading this thread just now. I really appreciate all the elaboration done up there. At least the conception is clearing up in my mind.

 

GA has offered some valuable information regarding this issue. And I think it's just a matter of time that we're ganna have such kinda terrain. I'm satisfied with the answer given above. Way to go! ED.

[Vekkinho]

I'm more interested in tree collision models than a general tree appearance and looks.

 

Clipping the trees while flying low couldn't be possible in previous ED games (LOMAC & FC) and I always flew NOE with no stress as trees are there just for eye candy.

 

Now, with a chopper I'd like to have trees that present obstacles you can hide behind and obstacles that prevent MANPADS and other air defense weapons from having a shot opportunity! The way those trees looks is of no major matter to me.

[VMFA117_Poko]

Yeah, for me tree could be just a simple cone (with texture if needed).

[CAT_101st]

I'm more interested in tree collision models than a general tree appearance and looks.quote]

 

+1 on that one.

[Weta43]

Just put a collision pole up the middle of them...

Or a polygonal collision box around the forrest objects - The terrain trees seem mostly to have been laid down as pre-arranged bits of forrest (eg object 'Trees_375_1898'). Maybe - create a conical collision box for a single tree, apply that to all the trees in a template 'group', record the topography of the resulting surface, create a polygonal collision box of that shape & apply that to all the cummulative tree objects of the templates type

[warthogmadman987]

Just put a collision pole up the middle of them...

Or a polygonal collision box around the forrest objects - The terrain trees seem mostly to have been laid down as pre-arranged bits of forrest (eg object 'Trees_375_1898'). Maybe - create a conical collision box for a single tree, apply that to all the trees in a template 'group', record the topography of the resulting surface, create a polygonal collision box of that shape & apply that to all the cummulative tree objects of the templates type

 

It is possible, but not probable. That would be like having 10,000 BMPs sprawled out over the terrain that you are flying over. In this engine, it would take way to much computing power that practically everyone's computer would die. I hope to explore the chance though that in the near future of putting these kind of trees that you are talking about into the game, so that way maybe mission builders can put a few of the trees around the way points and airbases, so that way people are on their toes when they fly next to these areas in the black shark.

[GGTharos]

What about a collision model and physics for the ground vehicles when it comes to trees then?

[VMFA117_Poko]

Make a invisible simple collision box of whole forrest on some high then.

[GGTharos]

But then vehicles aren't affected in terms of time and difficulty required to cross such terrain. Then there's daylight vs. IR masking, and all that fun stuff.

[VMFA117_Poko]

Leave masking for now. Focus on collidable trees.

[EvilBivol-1]

Next engine guys. Black Shark will not include solid trees.

[Alex_rcpilot]

I think an option that allows you to turn on/off forest collision model would be a practical tradeoff.

[VMFA117_Poko]

Next engine guys. Black Shark will not include solid trees.

If I could only say "deal" ;)

[einsena]

you know Armed Assault(ArmA) is able to render 3D trees for kilometers away complete with infantries, tanks, vehicles, buildings, other choppers, etc fighting each other with an acceptable FPS, ONLINE! not to mention offline.

 

maybe ED should contact BIS studios and "Ask" them how they're able to do it.

[Laivynas]

maybe ED should contact BIS studios and "Ask" them how they're able to do it.

Check how they (BIS) model helicopters and planes.

maybe BIS should contact ED studios and "Ask" them how they're able to do it.

[ФрогФут]

Check how they (BIS) model helicopters and planes.

maybe BIS should contact ED studios and "Ask" them how they're able to do it.

1: I think ArmA's graphics engine is better, then BS's.

2: But there are well modelled helicopters and planes in BS!

How does that connect with each other?