Trees Too Detailed

Sounds odd but hear me out. I don't think they fit the overall aesthetic of everything else like the peeps or rock textures being more cartoony and smooth. Mixed with the anti aisling they can be quite ugly when trees are generally my favourite thing to add in such games. They are also quite static but adding more animation to them currently I suspect would add a ton to the processing requirements which is never a good thing.

Have you considered much more simplistic foliage? I think it can be beautiful when done right. One example off the top of my head are the trees in an Early Access game called 'Salt'. Mixed with sound effects of the wind they become something much more than their visuals. I'm not suggesting the trees in Salt to look the same in Planet coaster, simply an example of how trees don't need to be super detailed.

Personally I'd love to see them much more in keeping with the rest of the game.

Another example of the art style I'm thinking of could be the upcoming game 'Sea of Thieves' by Microsoft.

Also something else to consider with this mixture of realism and uncanny valley trees is how they are highlighted and draw your attention from that which is not super detailed. I remember thinking that in the game 'The Last Guardian' the characters are pure cartoon against the backdrop of the world which is more 'real' and this seems to emphasise and make that world seem even more real than it actually is. I'm sure this was very cleverly done on purpose to achieve exactly that. Now, your foliage is also doing that psychologically but to the opposite effect, in that our park and your people take a back seat to the trees. If the trees were simplified it may absurdly emphasise the realism where you want it? At this point I'm talking out of my as.. ascended mind.

Your striving for realism is commendable make no mistake but possibly slightly misplaced in this area is all. After all, your biggest market for commercial success could be children, they love amusement parks and love video games, and are the reason most adults visit them, yet, a realistic simulation on the pc may not entice them in to this wonderful game and genre. Realism in physics and the nuts and bolts I can appreciate was necessary to satisfy the hardcore adult who grew up with your titles and similar games but. Now you have achieved that it could be cool to give a really family friendly aesthetic by just changing the approach to foliage. So children and adults alike can enjoy your wonderful game with its super easy to use interface without being put off ?

The problem with your trees is they are almost too good Kappa [squeeeeee]

edit: your grass textures and colour are freakin lovely btw ( unlike Tropico or SC where greenery doesn't grow back )

Hmm i like the Trees the Way they are now I think they fit in the overall aestethic...

Crowdpleaser said:

Hmm i like the Trees the Way they are now I think they fit in the overall aestethic...

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Well, I'm just throwing my opinion out there, its ok. You haven't seen an alternative to it to choose between one or the other though, there could be a different design that upon seeing you were convinced looked better. I tried to explain why I concluded they seem out of place and I'm sure there are people like yourself who are ok with them.

Thanks for your reply, if other people reply similarly then maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree [haha]

edit: my general opinion I guess is that I'd rather it looked like a fresh banging WiiU game ( which the rest of the game kinda does ) than a 90's Microsoft Flight/train/railway simulator. And to be honest they do look from that era. They aren't 2016 trees like something from 'Dying Light' or 'Battlefield' so why stick with what was considered good in the 90's.

Imagine lush smooth colourful palm trees whooshing and moving as a water ride swooshes past and water dripping off big leaves and peeps wiping their face. You see where I'm coming from?

I strongly disagree. the end

I find that the trees seem a little under textured in some areas. But still need optimized, plus I would like a few more options. Trees are fine how they are.

Unfortunately I can no longer edit my last post, I'm not bumping my own thread as it currently is at the top anyway, with that said...

I think the word for the difference in art style between the peeps and foliage is incongruous?

In 2016 it is possible to make the customers look 'real' as seen in another coaster game about to be released. Planet Coaster obviously toyed with this idea for half a second at some point in the last 12 years and chose to absolutely not do that. Why? because it looks ridiculous. They chose instead a simplified representation of human beings that allowed them the opportunity to give them huge amounts of personality without using huge amounts of processing power. Bear with me here, then they added realistic trees that have no personality and take up probably a chunk of processing power. Its incongruous to what they already stand for in their own need and brief of the design process. So the trees were simply overlooked as something that was a priority. Easily done, yet trees make a park. They are everywhere and become the general 'look' of the game.

I don't think the foliage comes anywhere close to the design of the peeps or the overall design brief I imagine they have. I'm saying that I don't like them, yet I love everything else I see, I think they could (not should) look at how trees are incongruous.

There is a fine line between a terrible game, good game, and tremendous game, Planet coaster looks to be tremendous. We have a small window of time to make it more than tremendous but a commercial success with a huge community feeding back into it for years to come.

Those trees aren't gonna cut it in 2019.[mouth shut]

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DreamMaster said:

I strongly disagree. the end

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It would be nice to know your reasons , what you enjoy about such games, your past experiences of similar games that makes you have this opinion so strongly.[cry]

Maybe this is a case of preaching to the converted? In reverse.

Anybody willing to pay 50 quid or 75 dollars is already happy with what they see. but we aren't going to keep the dev teem in beans on toast for the foreseeable future. They want this to sell like hot cakes to every single person that owns a version of Minecraft or has ever played Terraria, or Roller Coaster Tycoon. It's not street art that they are happy to be walked over for a few cents.

Ironically keeping us guys happy is now not such a financially great idea as anybody that wants this has bought it. So, I am suggesting what I see as an idea that would improve performance, global appeal, age appeal, and resulting in a healthy financial position for them to want to support this for many years.

I'm surprised people like the tress, I'm guessing you want a realistic park builder and the cartoon characters are something you are willing to ignore ?

I am not suggesting the whole game gets overturned into Thrillville off the rails here.

Devs, maybe you would like a middle ground option where both styles were an option? Like, mechanical pretend prop trees that are relatively inexpensive that are more stylised and have animation options. Idk

I understand what you are trying to say. I personally feel they actually fit the style, and stronger AA options or more variety in the future might alleviate the problem you have.

Yeh, that picture looks lovely, right from 2004. Place some peeps on it in photoshop to show what I mean if you could?

edit;
Also, the amount of unnecessary detail that makes it unplayable on 90% of computers when these games are played zoomed out 90% of the time is making my head spin.

Yet, there isn't even a pay off in them looking good from a distance, they just look like fuggly detailed trees glitching in anti aisling from the yesteryears of pc gaming.

Am I crazy here? I'm doubting my own sanity right now. This all seems so obvious to me but I guess not ? Somebody help me out here. Pls

Trees from 2004 just look at the default RCT3 trees. They were 2004 and they looked awful. If you think that looks like RCT3 trees you're pretty blind =/ I don't see how that image is right from 2004.

PC has not optimized visuals specially lighting and shadows which will effect the tree's visuals for time being. The draw distance is also low ish too. I would wait before worrying about it to closer to release.

@sirChick, It's an issue of art style and coherence. You know those cheap mobile or steam games that mix realistic backgrounds with cartoon characters? Yeh? They make me want to vomit.

I have pinned maybe too much hope on this game being my favourite thing to do for 900 hours in 2017. But the last thing I expected or thought would happen is it was one of these vomit inducing creations half way between video game, photoshop, and terribly realised realism. Yet here we are. Amazing 3d cartoon characters, Amazing rides and background research to satisfy even the hardcore, awful 'realistic' looking trees from an era where they didn't even look that good.

I don't know what else to say, the juxoposition bewteen fun rounded characters against detailed bad trees looks like red hot garbage. There. I'm done. Peace

I guess it's just you. For me they are miles better than most games of this genre.

But you also have to understand the technical limitations of trees, which i won't go deep into, but they cast complex shadows and sun beams, also there is A LOT of them on maps so some compromise has to be made to make this playable with many thousand guests and tens of rides and thousands of scenery etc. To me lowering tree detail is probably the best option of the lot to sacrifice.

Do you think they look better in other theme park games, because to me this is by far the best we've seen so far in this genre.

SirChick said:

I guess it's just you. For me they are miles better than most games of this genre.

But you also have to understand the technical limitations of trees, which i won't go deep into, but they cast complex shadows and sun beams, also there is A LOT of them on maps so some compromise has to be made to make this playable with many thousand guests and tens of rides and thousands of scenery etc. To me lowering tree detail is probably the best option of the lot to sacrifice.

Do you think they look better in other theme park games, because to me this is by far the best we've seen so far in this genre.

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Well SirChick, If you read back, my previous tldr's explained clearly,you would see my whole point was the current state of afairs probably uses too many resources and simplifying shrubbery! is probably a good thing for everyone involved in shrubbery or related foliage!

Sorry for making this thread.

I'm backing out. It reminds of this one time, after band camp, where I decided I would do everything I could to not suck at First Person Shooter games.

I got my copy of Modern Warfare 2 and played until I was better than every random hacker. It took hundreds of hours, but, I did it. I was, and am an online genius at MW2 on ps3.

A game long dead, a skill that is absolutely useless unless Activision releases a HD MW2 PS4 compilation. ( omg pls activision I would do anything for you ). So..

Life is too short, I was only trying to help. If you like the bush you have, don't try to take two in the mouth.

Drama...

Just wait for available Mods, i'm sure this is something that could be fixed by a graphical Mod if this bothers you that much.

I respectfully disagree. I think the foliage looks great, and it definitely doesn't need a change.

In general I like the style of the trees. But I see your point and also appreciate the visual style of the trees in the other games you mentioned. In some ways a different visual style for the trees might match the guest's style better, but it's mostly a personal preference I guess.

As for performance, I don't think we should assume that the trees are a huge hit on performance and that a different tree model would make that much of a difference. Plenty of people have placed over a million trees in maps in Cities Skylines and modern computers can still produce a playable game even with that many trees.

I have noticed that the movement of the trees on the maps I've been using has been reduced from some of the other pre-alpha footage I saw. I hope this is just due to varying weather since the movement was very realistic for a breezy day and I'd like to see more of that put back in.

I like the foliage as it is now. Just wanted to throw in my opinion.
Hey, what I dislike is that there's too few! [yesnod][haha]

Give them time, more variety will come