Design Thread - Tsaesci Highlands

[Deeza]

It makes sense...

Perhaps this could be an earlier volcanic peak, now inactive. The Commander's tent could be in the crater or volcanic caldera at the top.

Regarding flora, I have been trying to get hold of a copy of speedtree. Their website is no help - when I try to download the free trial it sends me to a pdf???

[exilehunter]

Your better off seeking it from other BC members. Speedtree is technically for game developers and not inteded for modders like us.

My first go at terraining the highlands (up is north). The duller green is the highland region by the region editor.


Obviously i need to smooth it out and make it look more natural but until then, any suggestions?
I think we need an estimation on the number of caves and camps.
Any ideas how many main tiers there should be?

[Deeza]

I see... I'll get on to that... still, it's strange that there's no free trial version. You would have thought from an advertising point of view it would be a no-brainer.

Anyway, if I can't get hold of a copy, I shall supply plentiful concepts for flora instead.

[willward]

i think the highlands should have long grass and a maze type thing with tsaesci inside it and then a little town with a tsaesci fort/base of some kind

[Deeza]

That's kind of what we're trying to achieve here, willward. Glad to see you here!

The whole area is made up of levels, some of which will have Tsaesci camps on them. We need to decide how many though...

How many cells does this area cover, exilehunter?

[exilehunter]

It covers about 110 exterior cells (+ or - 10 to 15 since some of it can overlap and some of it is on the gorge slope).
Keep the ideas coming!
The long grass maze sounds interesting but i cant say how well it would do FPS wise.

[Deeza]

The FPS could presumably be reduced if the player couldn't see over the top of the next level...

As I understand it, objects only load when the player can see them?

[exilehunter]

FPS does improve if you cant see any poly-heavy and detailed meshes and textures but i think it would still have some impact.
Since long grass is still grass, it will load as far as you can see grass. FPS drop would mainly be due to an increase in polygons in the mesh and the texture.

[Shiver-Tail]

FPS also depends on view distance...
So i think you can set a parameter (like in Crysis, for example) that controls "spawn distance" as i call it... normal grass wil spawn in its best model (so without texture switches and increase in detail) at a certain amout of meters wich the player can edit (in the option menu) maybe we can find a way to mkae it that the long grass only spawns at 5 meter distance and that when it's further away it's a low poly mesh with a small texture? maybe even a 2D object?
Or we can try, what i call and use (in my models and buildings,...) "3d textures": you make very, very simple models but very high detailed textures, so that it isn't that "heavy" for you PC. For example: if you want a bar of gold, you just create a simple bar-shaped mesh (no detail, etc.) and a high res texture (scratches, shadings,...), a mid res texture (only shadings and big scratches) and a low res tesxture (gold color with simple shadings and no scratches)
hope it works....

[Ysne]

How about raised fields like the ones that Clark Erickson has been studying in South America instead of the tiered paddies we find in Asia.

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cerickso/

This is just something to think about. I tried just copying the picture and couldn't figure it out.