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3D Grass

Hi,

Misho said:
Thanks Arno. I was kind of hoping that the files in the Scenery/World/Texture ("031b2su8.bmp" variety) would be able to use them if bump maps were supplied. They are DXT1 type, while DDS textures are DXT5 type... Am I totally off the rocker if I try to save the 031b2su8.bmp as a DXT5 type, and supply a bump version for it? No chance? :o
Click to expand...

It's the material that has to specify a bumpmap is there. Just adding the texture does not give you the effect, also not for FSX MDL files. So unfortunately that is not going to work with FS2002 gamepack.
 
Hi Robin,

toprob said:
As a matter of interest, how do the ground-plane objects work in FSX, such as the helipads? They can just be added as scenery objects, and they have a library which looks like all the others. What makes them sit on the ground without flickering? There's also the 'GEN_Chalk_Line', and a few other objects which behave this way. Obviously they are FSX materials, as they are bump-mapped.
Click to expand...

Those helipads have a high of around 60 centimetres. So that means the landable surface is above the ground and therefore does not flicker. Even the GEN_Chalk_Line object is slightly above the ground (about 5 centimetres), which is apparently enough for an object of that size to prevent flickering. But such approaches only work for small objects of course.
 
Misho said:
Atomic Sheep: I am not sure if you took a good look at the trees in FSX... you mentioned in one of the posts that they look quite good... If you take a closer look, they actually look awful... They are simply 2 polys, crossed in a + shape (from above). That is quite adequate for FlightSim, where you'd see them mostly from head on, but you're right, a nice, high poly tree for a very localised scenery (say, a small airfield) would be great to have.

Misho
Click to expand...

What i meant is that they look good enough if they are far enough, and you only look at them from ground level. Of course they are horrible from angles and close up, hence the idea of using LOD on trees. I'm not quite sure what you guys mean in relation to using them only at airfields, the way I see it, placing 3D trees by hand at airports is way too laborious, and it would be much easier to have lets say a 50 meter limit before the trees turn into the standard FSX double poly monsters, but at least at close range they will look decent.

I'm not sure about the problem of trees going from 2D to 3D and 3D back to 2D in a flickering/ugly/abrupt fashion though. I'll have to read up on FSX LOD but from what I read, that prob shouldn't be present anymore in FSX as some new way of dealing with LOD has been implemented (I think this was even talked about on these forums). Just thought I would think out loud there for a second :).
 
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Sorry for double posting but I thought that if I simply edited my last post, it would go unnoticed for perhaps quite some time...

I was just wondering what the equivalent 3D tree poly count has to be in order to represent a tree of the same quality as the 2D ones currently being used in FSX. By this I mean an average tree as I'm sure different types have different poly counts.
 
That would be tough. The 2D trees in FSX are flat images of actual trees, and as such, you can see individual leaves. To start modelling each leaf in 3D... ouch. It would be impractical. What's needed is some kind of a procedural shader, like the fur in some 3D demos (the hair in those instances is not 3D) But FSX doesn't support that.
 
My guess is that each "frond" is a two polygon object, and the material assigned to each poly has an opacity map which provides the illusion of the leaves being separate.

Take a look at a 3dsmax model I show in todays "showroom" forum. The "fence alongside the bridge surface is decorated this same way (as well as the louvers in the ceiling). The segments are each a single polygon, but the illusion is that there is great mechanical complexity in the model....its the impact of adding an opacity map to the material.
 
Yes, those kinds of palm trees would be fairly simple, as their leaves kind of lay in the same plane, so you could make a 3D model just like bob5568 described... and it would probably take only one or two leaf textures, as they all look pretty much the same.
 
Here are some screenshots from GMAX showing various options for trees.
The first shot is a typical FSX 2-plane tree.

Note that many of the default FSX trees have a few extra planes, which give a better view from above, as a 2-plane tree can basically disappear from above.
The second and third shots show the 280-odd poly tree I mentioned earlier. You can see that it is make up of many planes at various angles.

The fourth and fifth shots show a 65,000 polygon tree, where each leaf is a single flat plane. This has more polys that a medium-sized airport:) You wouldn't want to make your trees this way...

The Orbx trees have more polys than the 2-plane tree here, but less than the second tree. They probably use less than 20 polys.
 

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bob5568 said:
toprob, how does a designer place 65000 polys? Is there a distribution script?
Click to expand...

This isn't my model. It does remind me of the kid's school play, where we'd be given 30,000 paper leaves and told to make a tree...

However I used to have a tree Maxscript, which apparently placed individual leaves, so I guess this uses something similar.
In GMAX, though, the script I had only made branches, so I never got to make a real tree.
 
bob5568 said:
My guess is that each "frond" is a two polygon object, and the material assigned to each poly has an opacity map which provides the illusion of the leaves being separate.

Take a look at a 3dsmax model I show in todays "showroom" forum. The "fence alongside the bridge surface is decorated this same way (as well as the louvers in the ceiling). The segments are each a single polygon, but the illusion is that there is great mechanical complexity in the model....its the impact of adding an opacity map to the material.
Click to expand...

Yep I understand that, but what I was getting at was... with the 2 polygon trees that are standard in FSX, as a result of their opacity properties, what sort of polygon count do they look like if we look at them straight on i.e. from a position that makes them look the best to an observer?

You have to admit that those trees look a whole lot better than the standard ones and I can't help but feel that they don't use the same 2 poly technique or indeed the multi poly technique as toprob described with images 2 and 3.

To place individual leaves on a highly detailed tree such as the one shown, there are various models that will be able to do so... I'm thinking namely of fractals being the best one for this. This way... a single formula defines the whole tree.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Dragon_trees.jpg

http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=fractal+trees&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=

as some examples of really basic ones to ones that look pretty life like.

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/ shows some examples of fractals. I think it's basically based on fat tailed distributions as a result of which we see such natural looking patterns.

Haven't read through this... but might be useful also

http://wiki.renderplus.com/?title=Tree_Maker
 
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Atomic_Sheep said:
You have to admit that those trees look a whole lot better than the standard ones and I can't help but feel that they don't use the same 2 poly technique or indeed the multi poly technique as toprob described with images 2 and 3.
Click to expand...


I'm not too sure which trees you are talking about -- are you talking about the palm trees, because they look EXACTLY like they are simply made from 9 or 10 planes. You'll notice that the video only shows them from one angle -- looking up -- which is obviously their ideal view angle. (This may be because we would expect the leaves to bend downwards from side-on, and of course they won't.)

Realism is really determined by the quality of the textures, rather than the amount of geometry. You could put in all the geometry you want, and still end up with arcade trees, if you use the wrong textures.
 
I was indeed talking about the palm trees. Im sure they are not 65000 polys but i somehow doubt they are two poly either.

i installed the SDK pack, but now you need to register gmax... where is the registration key found? What version of GMAX comes on the FSX cd and is it a one time only use registration? I'm planning on getting another computer soon... will I be able to install it on that without any probs?
 
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I said two polys per frond. And I'd still bet I'm right. Sure there are some polys in the trunk, and more than one frond.

Anyway, the registration for gmax was done thru a website called turbosquid. Surf over there, and see if they have what you need.

Bob
 
I'm pretty sure you'll find that each of the seven fronds is a simple flat plane with a double-sided texture. I don't get a good enough look at the trunk, but it may be just a cross-plane. Which would make it 9 planes, so basically 18 polys.

Since GMAX is no longer officially supported, it is trickier than it used to be to register it. The 'current' version is 1.2, and I suspect that this is the only version you have. You need to register just once.
I think you can still register GMAX at the Turbosquid site -- try here.

EDIT: Oops, overlapped Bob's reply.
 
Ok I'll give it a try... and yes I think my version is 1.2 (it's whatever came on the FSX disc after the SDK install). I do have a question whether it'll be activatable alter on when I get a new computer and go about reinstalling everything? Will the activation still be valid? will I simply need to repeat the process?
 
Atomic_Sheep said:
Ok I'll give it a try... and yes I think my version is 1.2 (it's whatever came on the FSX disc after the SDK install). I do have a question whether it'll be activatable alter on when I get a new computer and go about reinstalling everything? Will the activation still be valid? will I simply need to repeat the process?
Click to expand...

A "registration workaround" has been posted at the TurboSquid GMax forum for several years...

http://www.fsalpha.com/gmax_tips/

or

http://pages.infinit.net/browser/Projects/GMAX/GMAX_Registration_Workaround.zip

With this in hand, you will never need to be concerned with reinstalling GMax v1.2 ever again. :D
 
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