Island Construction

[Justintime9]

awesome I really like the sketches
and Lon, are you saying that you've figured out how to use dupliverts with plasma?

[ABguy]

Lon that was exactly what I was thinking. Vines would also work really well perhaps the forest floor could be littered with Leaves. Of course that can be a simple texture mesh also, the vines and whatnot. Yeah I think that the game shouldn't suffer any preformance issues that way. And whats more if you find that it does, you can knock a few of the branches off some of the trees. Put some of them down to 2 or three big branches in areas where the player wouldn't have direct access to them but close enough to see them. And the idea to just put the trees at a distance in a PNG is I think pretty standard with how its done, and you can do that and still have it feel like a big open forest area.

I just hope the images are helping you guys out. I realize that alot of the stuff youv'e been working out for a good deal amount of time, if there are any other things you need feel free to ask me. I can't guarentee I can get it done quick but I can promise to try.

[Lontahv]

No dupli-verts in Uru yet. But I hope to work on it a bit.

Also, Plasma's pretty good at rendering large amounts of geometry so, I think we don't have to use to many tricks. And since this isn't a racing or shooting game--it has the right to be a bit laggy.

~Lontahv

[Justintime9]

still... even a little bit of lag spoils it for me... so if we can help it, we should keep the lag at 0

[Lontahv]

Ok! I've been working on some other things (some of them are done--nice Gira-style water is now working in pyprp)

I was thinking about a change--rather, a couple changes to the island of Yinfara.

I talked with Jamey about a week ago and he said these ideas sounded pretty good.


First, we make the island smaller, not super-small just a bit smaller.
And second we make there be a treeless swamp in the center of the island; this will cut down onthe need for trees and this will make the lag less.

Justin, how does this sound?

See the problem about having a really big island is that then you need a lot of trees unless you have really big trees and lots of trees means lots of lag.

To make it shorter:

Big island = Big lag

~Lontahv

[Jojon]

...unless you make it an orchard of perfectly aligned minimal and identical billboard trees - then 32 simple planes becomes 256 trees. ;PP

[Justintime9]

Hmm... this is quite a dilemma... I want the forest big enough to feel ambient, and like a cozy Jungle, that it doesn't take like, a few minutes out of... but I HATE lag, so I guess a good compromise, is to make the Island a bit smaller, not cutting the amount of trees, but perhaps making the beaches a bit smaller (but not too small) and keep the swamp in the same place, but perhaps put a canopy of vines above it. sound like a good Idea?

[Lontahv]

Yeah. But I think the beach can't really get any smaller. If the forest is really dense, it should seem much bigger.

Also, what worries me is that the swamp is sitting right near the sea. Wouldn't it be a bit more realistic if we had rocky shores--clifflets (I made up the word on the spot ) and then a pile of trees around the edge, and the in the very center a small swamp(the ground around the middle being a little swampy--then in the very center a full-fledged swamp)?

This way, we can have 3 (forest, sea-view, swamp)different places rather than 2 (forest, sea-view).


~Lontahv

[Justintime9]

Ok, well, as long as it's density makes it look bigger, that sounds good, and, as long as the swamp isn't like, blocking the pathway, it should be fine... in fact, would you mind editing the map to show where you plan to put the swamp?

[Lontahv]

I'll edit the map.

EDIT: Here it is:

Show Spoiler

The green is for forest--the more green it is, the denser.

The spot right near the hut is very dense.

~Lontahv