Realistic looking grass

[D'Lanor]

That is not quite true. Back in 2003 you could not play games on a laptop. Nowadays many people who are playing Uru are doing so on laptops which have lower specs than desktop PCs.

Even MOULa still lists this as current System Requirements:

* Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7
* 800MHz PentiumIII or AMD Athlon or better Processor
* 512MB of Memory, 1GB or more recommended
* Video Card: 32 MB RAM, DirectX9.0 -compliant video card and compliant audio card
* DirectX 9.0c
* 3+ GB free Hard Drive Space
* Broadband Internet Connection
* 800 by 600 16 bit displays

Source: http://mystonline.com/en/about/

[Luna]

And for some people, like me, their notebook is the only computer they have (not counting my desktop PC for old games with a graphics card from before 2003)

My notebook got a pretty good graphics card and would probably be able to cope with somewhat heavier ages, but still. I don't think it would be able to cope with the grass.

[andylegate]

It always amazes me at the amount of people that buy laptops for gaming.


That said, while there are plenty of people out there with what I call "Dinosaur" systems, the gaming industry does not always bow down to that. Cyan themselves forced me to upgrade my computer several times with each new installment of Myst (starting with Riven - faster CPU and more memory, Myst III - a Graphics Accelerator Card, Myst IV - a DVD drive.....).

While "Backwards Compatibility" has been the tradition, I have to get behind Embreon on this: Upgrade peoples! Upgrade! heheh.

[Luna]

uh I will upgrade when I have the /space/ and the /money/

Also transporting a desktop PC to school every day on a bicycle is kind of hard you know.

[kaelisebonrai]

just because you /can/ use ridiculous amounts of polygons on some grass, does not mean you /should/, more polygons might look better, but if you want more pretty things? why the pants would you waste it on grass? Grass can be done well enough without resorting to this kind of insanity.

Also, re: upgrade - there are certain limits to what you should be doing in an old real-time engine, and the answer is /not/ just "upgrade".

Sure, this /can/ run, on the right hardware... but just because you /can/ do something, doesn't mean you /should/.

[Embreon]

1.000.000 faces for realistic looking object these day's is nothing but normal. ( for example the characters of the Game Gears of War )
And the discussion has gone beyond the point if you want to use a lot of polygons for just grass.

Using a lot of polygons increases the amount of detail you can put in a age, the same goes for using high resolution textures.
And I'm not even done with finding way's to make it the plasma engine more difficult, like the moving curtains I made are not way good enough as they should be.
I'll stress it as much as possible till my I7-920 starts to show 50% and my frame rate drops below 60 fps

Gaming has changed and so have the engine's , but if you want to improve the quality of a game with the same engine you just need to improve your hardware.
Just that same as what happend with the Unreal 2 engine. And this engine is from 2002 and is still being used, for example in Lineage. And those specs just went
up because of the increase of polygon count and use of modern shaders.

And on the other hand I don't think if have to remind everyone ...:
http://media.createdigitalmedia.net/cdm ... t5rock.jpg
http://myst5.com/images/myst5eoa/myst5concept025.jpg

[Paradox]

Use LoadMasks to have different levels of meshes/details. Wavesets (at least in Cyan Ages) already do this, and only load at the highest graphics level.

[andylegate]

Ah, Noloben.......

The wavy grass there are X-form, distributed with the Distributor Tool with Cyan's plug in, grouped together.



This group here has 9,366 faces and 18,732 verticies:



And that nice wavyness it has to it is from the Grass Shader, you can see it here in Max. Too bad POTS doesn't support it:

[D'Lanor]

I'm just going to point at my signature (again).

[Embreon]

The only thing about X-forms is when you look from them from about, you won't see them.
So it would be kind of empty if you ever look down. It's one of those tricks in gaming that has it's downside
The same with rotating planes on tree's that rotate to where the player is standing. The downside is that you see the textures move.

We can endlessly debate over the fact if you should use A or B, the fact is still that whoever creates an age decides on how to make it.
I decide to create an Age with a lot of detail, with or without that way of grass. But still with a high poly count. And with high resolution textures.
And if your system can't handle it , I'm sorry but that just to bad then ...

This group here has 9,366 faces and 18,732 verticies:

Strange poly count on those X-forms, the amount of faces to vertices's seems seems off.
And indeed to bad that POTS does not support that grass feature, would be nice to have moving grass.
Should be still possible btw, next to the X-form support from Plasma its also possible to "scatter" faces with
a grass texture on it in 3dsmax. And it it's possible to animate movement and rotation in those parameters.
I don't really know if plasma will use these animations, as they should be added to the dope sheet.
If thats not possible, you could also try to animate it first and then scatter is ....