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A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 5:45 am
by Second Illiteration
Moving flora

I imagine this must have been tried before, but I can't recall seeing it, and don't have the time to install the game and look around. However, this thought/idea keeps pinballing around in my head so I figured I needed to at least post it to get it out of there :) Anyways, has anyone animated flora? For example, long grass could have a trigger that when a dinosaur or player enters, the grass sways through animation. Seems grass would be simpler because I believe grass is more of a flat mesh/billboard type of object? But I feel like the same could be done with trees to simulate movement in the wind?

Higher detailed terrain

So I know there is the issue of being limited in the texture quality for terrain, as well as how complex the splitting of terrain vertices can be. Has anyone tried a smaller level where terrain is mostly imported meshes? Then you could use HD textures?


Anyways just to random ideas that may be new but probably not that I just had to brain purge :D

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 8:24 am
by machf
Second Illiteration wrote:Moving flora

I imagine this must have been tried before, but I can't recall seeing it, and don't have the time to install the game and look around. However, this thought/idea keeps pinballing around in my head so I figured I needed to at least post it to get it out of there :) Anyways, has anyone animated flora? For example, long grass could have a trigger that when a dinosaur or player enters, the grass sways through animation. Seems grass would be simpler because I believe grass is more of a flat mesh/billboard type of object? But I feel like the same could be done with trees to simulate movement in the wind?
Well, I've done animated textures for long grass (since it's basically only two flat planes at an approximately right angle), but I guess we could do with some more complex plants something like what I did with the Dilophosaurus opening its frill (by using substitute meshes) when triggered by some action... my only worry in that regard is whether the substitute meshes would conflict in any way with the LOD meshes...
Higher detailed terrain

So I know there is the issue of being limited in the texture quality for terrain, as well as how complex the splitting of terrain vertices can be. Has anyone tried a smaller level where terrain is mostly imported meshes? Then you could use HD textures?
Well... in my Pens level I've used meshes to replace terrain in some areas, but the problem with that is that you need to place the correponding physics objects underneath... and dinosaurs may get stuck when stepping on them, or may not want to step on them in the frist place. It's a bit tricky in that regard, but if you do, of course you can use terrain textures on "fake" terrain objcets. Think of them just as large boulders colored like the terrain...
Anyways just to random ideas that may be new but probably not that I just had to brain purge :D

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 8:57 am
by Draconisaurus
Don't want to spoil too much but I'm aware of a mod going on with animated palm leaves... Had a look, is quite nice, although due to framerate you tend only to notice when not moving.

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 10:49 am
by TheIdiot
Moving flora

I imagine this must have been tried before, but I can't recall seeing it, and don't have the time to install the game and look around. However, this thought/idea keeps pinballing around in my head so I figured I needed to at least post it to get it out of there :) Anyways, has anyone animated flora? For example, long grass could have a trigger that when a dinosaur or player enters, the grass sways through animation. Seems grass would be simpler because I believe grass is more of a flat mesh/billboard type of object? But I feel like the same could be done with trees to simulate movement in the wind?
Don't want to spoil too much but I'm aware of a mod going on with animated palm leaves... Had a look, is quite nice, although due to framerate you tend only to notice when not moving.
I believe the mod Draco is referring to is my Tres HD mod, which does indeed have animated flora. All I did was give the leaf textures a five-frame animation sequence, which makes it look as if the leaves are swaing in the wind. I got this idea from machf's swaying long grass, as he said. The big problem with doing this, however, is that animated objects don't appear capable of caching, which causes them to be rendered at full detail no matter how far you get from them. I have yet to come up with a solution to get around this.
Higher detailed terrain

So I know there is the issue of being limited in the texture quality for terrain, as well as how complex the splitting of terrain vertices can be. Has anyone tried a smaller level where terrain is mostly imported meshes? Then you could use HD textures?
Closest thing I've ever seen to that, other than the terrain meshes people have used to create tunnels, is the perimeter terrain I made in the MegaJungle level. That's just a big object modelled to look like mountains which I applied a satellite jungle texture to in order to have mountains surrounding the playing area without having to use and detail Tres terrain.

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 3:08 pm
by Slugger
don't forget that TC-Cove has those large ferns that bend away when you walk through them (it's physics-driven rather than animated: there's a $-object in the center for the collision and the fern is mounted to a magnet).

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 8:21 pm
by TheIdiot
Slugger wrote:don't forget that TC-Cove has those large ferns that bend away when you walk through them (it's physics-driven rather than animated: there's a $-object in the center for the collision and the fern is mounted to a magnet).
Iiiiii haven't played TC~Cove, so I don't really know much about it, as the link for the file is dead. But yes, I'm aware of this idea, using it extensively in both my major projects. Though I was first introduced to it via JPDS.

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 9:32 pm
by machf
I could upload those TC~cove files, but it consists of two separate downloads and then you have to use GeomAdd to create the final SWP/PID files...

Or maybe I should make a new "ready" version for simpler downloading?

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 11:20 pm
by TheIdiot
I could upload those TC~cove files, but it consists of two separate downloads and then you have to use GeomAdd to create the final SWP/PID files...

Or maybe I should make a new "ready" version for simpler downloading?
Definitely take the latter option. Most people probably don't know how to create the files with GeomAdd. A short wait is better than a difficult set-up.

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 12:22 am
by Draconisaurus
IIRC, I stole the bending Tres plant from a test level Slugger sent me aeons ago, putting it into JPDS. It seems to have created a legacy over time... I am *cough* aware of a level where ALL the ground foliage seems to bend via physics...

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 12:15 pm
by Slugger
Draconisaurus wrote:IIRC, I stole the bending Tres plant from a test level Slugger sent me aeons ago, putting it into JPDS. It seems to have created a legacy over time... I am *cough* aware of a level where ALL the ground foliage seems to bend via physics...
I believe that was the TC_Isle test level, which is where I would've snagged that object from. I don't seem to recall seeing a level where all the ground foliage was physics-driven?

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 12:37 pm
by TheIdiot
I am *cough* aware of a level where ALL the ground foliage seems to bend via physics...
Which level is this? I don't think anyone's done a level where EVERYTHING bends. Beach HD has many, but not all ground foliage objects bendable, as does JPDS and RTJP.

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 5:43 pm
by Draconisaurus
Oh! I was referring to Beach HD...

Re: A couple ideas: moving flora and higher detailed terrain

Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:57 am
by Second Illiteration
I had figured there had to be SOME stuff going on that utilized these ideas or something similar. :)