Forests

In MapEditor thread it is mentioned that forests can be created. Is there any progress on the subjects of forest? Did anyone try to use PLSM2 with forested areas? Thanks a bunch.

using impostor you already can make nice forests... Goof seems to support it now, as Falagard successfully integrated that :
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16423&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

@Tuan,

I am not too sure whether this is the right thread or not, but imposter demo posted on your website has a little problem with my computer - the rods are flickering whenever the camera yaw to the left/right.

that's on TODO list... camera yaw/roll/pitch and multiples cameras...

This was on GameDev.net recently and looks pretty incredible:
http://www.fluidinteractive.com/graphics/planta/

I mailed about the non-commercial license and was told the SDK will be available within about two weeks. The video is pretty stunning, but I don't know how difficult it will be to integrate within Ogre - you better believe I'm gonna try though. It's a nice alternative to SpeedTreeRT (which is still pretty awesome, but uh... at $10,000... well... oh, my wallet just caught on fire at the suggestion.)

Ya, I saw it and drooled over the screenshots and video too. I'd need to know the price of commercial licensing before looking too deep at it, and after looking at it quite a bit there's nothing overly complicated about what they're doing. The only thing I'm not too sure about is the shadow receiving on the leaves, and of course, the whole tree editor is a lot of work

Ya, I'm being patient. And while it's not overly complicated, it saves me a hell of a lot of work for what will end up being a free game. Having a forest of self-generating trees that can be effected by the wind? Count me in!

Yup, definitely for a free game, it's great that they are free for non commercial applications.

If their commercial licensing is reasonable, I'll integrate it directly into GOOF.

What become of the Mesh Tree project?
With the upcoming Billboard Clouds and imposter, LOD, etc. we could have an awesome solution.

Ya, actually after thinking about it more I don't think I'd go with this and would continue with my own trees anyhow (which are compatible with the MeshTree project once it gets up and ready).

My trees already support LOD and should be easy to get working with impostors.

The thing that makes my trees different from most is that you have to create the tree mesh and the leaves mesh yourself, but it also means that you have full control over what they look like. Want to create a gnarled tree that has arms and legs like this?



Go for it. Once I add animation support to the leaves you'd be able to fully animate the tree branches (using traditional animation techniques in your 3d modeller of choise) and the leaves will move with it.

The swaying leaves is also something that is completely doable.

The only thing is that I have to make it easier to create trees automatically using something like MeshTree in addition to giving full control if you want to create a custom tree mesh.

Clay

If we have a lot of trees with skeletal animation, would not it be too expansive. Lod can help with triangles, but what about skeletons? Planta looks very good, but in my project I think I can get away with something simpler than that. I was thinking about making PLSM2 simulate forest tops if camera is far from the place with the forest and put actual models close by.

If we have a lot of trees with skeletal animation, would not it be too expansive.


No, you'd only play the animations on nearby trees within a certain radius, and only if vertex shader support is available by the hardware. Hardware accelerated animations is EXACTLY what both SpeedTree and Planta do, it's just that they handle it using algorithms.

The difference is that ogre has bone structures and keyframed animation per entity, so it is more expensive, but not prohibitively so. Hardware skeletal animation is very fast.

Ah, I consider more "technical" trees with abnormalities to be characters of their own, so they'd certainly get the works in the modeler. With Planta, unless my eyes are decieving me, you'll be able to use (like SpeedTree) wind controls to influence tree swaying - that'd be a good bit of extra work and might look a bit odd if done in a 3D modeler.

Besides, if it ends up looking crappy, I can always pretend I never heard of it

Haven't seen a game yet that needed dynamic wind controls, even Morrowind just sways the trees a little despite weather conditions as far as I know.

Regardless, it wouldn't be hard to have two animations, calm and windy.

Again, I leave it up to you. If you want to get Planta working with Ogre and aren't releasing a commercial game then I can't see why you wouldn't want to try it out.

SpeedTree was painful to get working with any middleware 3d engine that wasn't supported by SpeedTree itself. Instead of giving you a nice array of verts, indices, etc. it built up a large data chunk in OpenGL or DirectX specific formats, so in the case of Ogre you'd have to basically convert that into Ogre vertex buffers, which isn't the end of the world but can be painful.

Hopefully Planta does a better job.

Ya, I remember reading something like that about SpeedTree, thus I had a knee-jerk "WOW AWESOME! Wait, oh no..." when I saw Planta.

And, no, I don't have to use Planta for what I'm doing, it'd just save me work in the art department. The reason for using wind isn't a requirement, it's just something I'd like to add as an effect to explosive or high-powered forces near the trees to give them a look of stress when hit with such a force.

Hrm, the license without source code for commercial release is very reasonable. $800 USD, compared to SpeedTree's which is around $10,000 I think. Interesting, definitely makes me consider it further.

...The only thing I'm not too sure about is the shadow receiving on the leaves, and of course, the whole tree editor is a lot of work

looks like a standard shadow map to me which would work assuming the close up leaves are seperate which looks like it is. Shadows make tree's look like trees more than anything I think. Pretty damn awesome though

To get self shadowing shadow map relies on rendering depth to a floating point texture.... leaves are just quads oriented towards whatever camera they are rendering to, so how would that work?

And why wouldn't all leaves just be self shadowed if that's the case? Perhaps I'm just not cluing in. Perhaps the leaves do orient towards the light when rendering the shadow, and towards camera when rendering depth and it just works. And also, I am no expert on shadow mapping, but it seems like it could pose problems.

perhaps using this paper : Approximate Ambient Occlusion for Trees

What become of the Mesh Tree project?
With the upcoming Billboard Clouds and imposter, LOD, etc. we could have an awesome solution.
I have been convincing my programmers that the next thing we want after we get our editor to a good state is to help Sputnick and SpannerMan complete this. So far, the internal response has been good, once they realized how much of the code was already done. I have contacted both SpannerMan and Sputnick via PM and both were willing to let PW's programmers help. I know they both got real busy lately, one with a new job.

It is definitely on PW's list of things to do, but seeing planta and hearing about the license might just change that . I will keep you updated if our tentative roadmap changes (ie. we no longer plan on finishing MeshTree). I can't make any promises.

I have contacted both SpannerMan and Sputnick via PM and both were willing to let PW's programmers help.
Wow, that's great news!

So far, the internal response has been good, once they realized how much of the code was already done.
Exactly my thoughts. Would be a shame to let that work go to waste.

Sure, Planta seems nice. But it would be great to have our own *in-OGRE* solution.

I don't see why we can't have both?

There would still be work to be done. Planta doesn't do the actual rendering of the trees. A plugin for Ogre would be needed (perhaps a new MovableObject type) to render the planta data.

Ya, if planta works like speedtree, which I'm sure it does, it'll give you verts, indices and probably additional parameters such as matrix index for the branches for vertex animation in the shader and leaf rocking group in the leaves. You'll have to take the data and populate Ogre vertex buffers with proper vertex format and update the shader params per frame with what Planta gives you, as well as port the actual shaders.

Hmm, unless I am missing something, they took down their info page on Planta. Yeah the videos are still there, but that is strange. That doesnt bode well, IMO. Could be they arent ready yet, or they were bought (by IDV?)...

Anyone know?

Yeah, it looked too good to be true.

I got the beta, and I think it needed some more work. I can say that cause I didn't sign an NDA

I got info from FluidGames, that they will have official release of Planta in the end of August.

Damnit all! I was looking forward to it

I got the beta, and I think it needed some more work. I can say that cause I didn't sign an NDA

Well, there is still hope then. Thanks for the info.

Well, I also hope, that there will be any possibility, how to easily integrate plant rendering system into PLSM. I need something like that too for my game project, cause will display large outdoor scenes.