Speetree Rt, oh no. Options

[Argo]

now that bethesda has choosen to release the vids, everyone can have a look on the forrest video and see the speetree in motion him- and herself.

the player in the video moves very slowly, but if you look close enough and focus on a tree, while the player starts walking into a slightly different direction, you can see how the leaves turn with player. billboards, bah. damn them, simple sprites they are.

now you can argue that its barely noticable, but i promise you, that the first time you enter a forest and look around faster than he does, you are going to notice it.

the speedtree engine might be great for photorealistic screenshots and good performance, but it lacks realism, and in motion, just doesnt look good.

too bad, but i guess we'll have to live with it.

[DoomedOne]

Download the speedtree demo and play around with that. You'll notice it really isn't very noticeable, and you actually do have to try to see them. Thee sprites for oblivion is even on an individual leaf scale, so it'll be even less noticeable.

[RobRendell]

The sprites for oblivion is even on an individual leaf scale, so it'll be even less noticeable.

Actually, my understanding is that the billboards are of bunches of leaves, like in the SpeedTree demo. However, they've generated each billboard image from a full 3d model of individual leaves (one polygon apiece), so the billboard images have accurate normal maps. This way, despite being a flat billboard of dozens of leaves, individual leaves will be illuminated differently by the sunlight, and change appropriately as the sun and player moves.

It's a clever way to give an illusion of individual leaves, and much better visually than the fixed polygons crossing over each other used to model leaves in earlier games. The fact that the billboards keep a fixed orientation WRT the camera isn't anywhere near as artificial-looking as looking up into an old-style tree from below and seeing the leaf-cluster polygons side-on.

All IMHO, naturally

Edit: Also, one thing I noticed in the SpeedTree demo is that when they have several billboards anchored to points in space near one another, as you move past and they rotate, they start to interpenetrate one another differently. The effect strongly masks the billboard rotate-to-face-you look, and unless you watch like a hawk the impression is that you're just seeing a confusion of leaves from different angles.


This post has been edited by RobRendell: Oct 29 2005, 03:15 AM