Trees

Try this thread ...

http://gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=115770

Personally I use billboarding.

I thought the days of billboarding trees were done with Majoras Mask.

I also thought all the "current" games modelled their own trees. Perhaps I am wrong though....

Techlead
www.myran.com/enilno

Billboarding is still used. Splinter Cell uses billboarding, but in a clever maner. I used the same technique for my trees. Use cruciforms and bolboards to get the effect. Your tree trunks and major branches are geometry, while the smaller limbs and leaves are billboards and cruciforms.

Lamont G.
CG Artist
San Diego CA

[edited by - Lamont on January 30, 2003 4:50:15 PM]

Many games use a hybrid method. When the tree is far away it''s a billboard. When it gets close the engine swaps in the tree model.

quote:

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Original post by shaft
Many games use a hybrid method. When the tree is far away it''s a billboard. When it gets close the engine swaps in the tree model.

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Until our hardware can render 200 trillion polygons a second, I suspect billboarding will be a valid (and realistic) technique. If you''re standing on a high ridge overlooking a forest containing 100,000 trees in your view, you might want to consider the benefits of billboarding, especially if all of the trees are small. If you are clever with your textures, you can even change the lighting on the billboarding trees.

The other alternative is hardware that can raytrace procedural models, and we don''t exactly have that.

The problem is that some techniques have been abused or improperly used, giving them a bad name. Billboarding is a good thing, and will be better, when used properly. Proper use is for far away objects.

I wonder what bishop_pass will say, now that he knows that I was the AP that said "bilboarding."

I suggest downloading the vietcong multiplayer download... and see how they have done them... afterall.. there are millions of different trees... they look pretty good too!