[DEVELOPMENT] Vegetation creation, and what is possible today

[lysan]

Hello commanders and wonderful FDEVS!

This is your favorite joker and annoying poster CMDR LYSAN.

I want to share something with ya all! sharing is caring and all that, when I was a young lad I shared a lot with the girls in the neighborhood until Mrs Lysan
got hold on me, and tortured me with TLC for years. You know, the way to a mans hart is through his stomach

Well enough history lets get down to it. PLANTS! how will it be when we get down to the planets, and what is actually possible?

So the buzz word these days are procedural generation! and we all know that Frontier are the masters of ProGen right??? however even if they are the masters, I would like to show you, just like me who are a noob regarding what can be done today. Enjoy the video and if you like it make sure that the devs will know by commenting in the this thread.

[video=youtube;l8cIjMQJHeQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8cIjMQJHeQ&index=3&list=PLxwYFI8LIndWHh9joCq0OPCxX7uSeK_YN[/video]

[video=youtube;mYcZ0uojnmo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYcZ0uojnmo&list=PLxwYFI8LIndWHh9joCq0OPCxX7uSeK_YN&index=5[/video]

[video=youtube;y01LIkEtcxc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y01LIkEtcxc&index=28&list=PLxwYFI8LIndWHh9joCq0OPCxX7uSeK_YN[/video]

 

[Jools]

take a look at the quality of fumaroles and adjust your expectations accordingly

I like your excitement about PG... I`m a big fan too

But I expect nothing like that from frontier, not even close...

This is a software for pre baking assets... for mostly static, small scale games... with all the problems this game has, and all the areas in which the engine is so severely lacking, i say this is downright impossible for frontier to achieve

I expect late Ps2 early Ps3 level of asset quality at best, and even that probably limited

again... check out the trees in stations... they are even below the level i have just described... look at the plants under the bio domes... again 3 gens old level of quality

I had high expectations two years ago... now i understand they are unable to do anything like this for ED

sorry to be a downer... but thats how i see it based on current progress.

 

[lysan]

take a look at the quality of fumaroles and adjust your expectations accordingly

I like your excitement about PG... I`m a big fan too

But I expect nothing like that from frontier, not even close...

This is a software for pre baking assets... for mostly static, small scale games... with all the problems this game has, and all the areas in which the engine is so severely lacking, i say this is downright impossible for frontier to achieve

I expect late Ps2 early Ps3 level of asset quality at best, and even that probably limited

again... check out the trees in stations... they are even below the level i have just described... look at the plants under the bio domes... again 3 gens old level of quality

I had high expectations two years ago... now i understand they are unable to do anything like this for ED

sorry to be a downer... but thats how i see it based on current progress.

Well, maybe that is why they want to drop the 32bit support? who knows, however the engine surely need to be updated but to my knowledge they are already doing that.
Again, if you want to be a front runner in todays and tomorrows games you need to have the right tools to compete in the long run. Yes the trees in the stations are very low poly, I just hope they will work on it and get the graphics up to 2016 standards. Some of it look pretty good, and some not so good.

 

[Jools]

I just hope they will work on it and get the graphics up to 2016 standards. Some of it look pretty good, and some not so good.

Totally agree and I hope for it too... i don`t believe it though ... <runs to the corner crying and sadly humming the melody of FE2 intro>

 

[Ian Skippy]

Well, maybe that is why they want to drop the 32bit support? who knows, however the engine surely need to be updated but to my knowledge they are already doing that.
Again, if you want to be a front runner in todays and tomorrows games you need to have the right tools to compete in the long run. Yes the trees in the stations are very low poly, I just hope they will work on it and get the graphics up to 2016 standards. Some of it look pretty good, and some not so good.

I love how some people like Jools judge an engine by looking at an asset. The Outsider had far better trees, running on a far older version on Cobra, eight years ago or so. Ofcourse they can load assets with higher poly counts, but one should consider the trade-of between what it adds and what it, power-wise, costs. One of the cool things of ED is that they have managed to make this game look great even on a potato, its a super efficient engine. But yes, at some point the support for such outdated legacy tech will be dropped, and they will find a new sweetspot. Interestingly, people already found rather high-res textures in new planetary base-types in 2.2 beta, textures which only really make sense for close-up FPS style gameplay...

 

[Insomnia]

They had me when they said "From the creators of Vue" Used to play around with Vue when I was little.

Their tech looks cool, not ground breaking or anything, but cool.
Forests (and characters) has always been something that is very hard to look real in games.

For me, forests comes to life with the wind animations and not polygon numbers. If a tree sway in a natural fashion, I believe it. But I haven't been convinced just yet. Maybe it's because it's just animations​ and not actual wind interactions.

 

[knowles2]

Current assets in domes and so forth aren't meant to be look at that closely, that pretty obvious, they meant to maintain a delusion from a distant that they are highly detail trees and they do that well enough. It no guide to what they will at once we get life size planets or FPS inside the stations.

 

[Barking_Mad]

DirextX 12 will be a very big game changer from what I understand. It's so much more powerful than what's gone before so im sure we're looking at a considerable jump in what can be done. Still a massive challenge though.