Animations

Quick question:
Is the tree animations (them wiggling around) what causes them to be FPS killers, or is it a combination of that and the sheer "mass" of them (polys?) Just wondering, if they can be disabled, perhaps people who make maps can release a "full" version in addition to a "FPS friendly" version? (less vegetation, no tree animations, no water animations etc)

Just wondering...Im trying my hand at a map, wanted to see if I should start from the beginning with both versions in mind or DGAF

 

I think someone should make the trees that rotate depending on where you are. They could even be a picture. You know, the cheap-o trees.

 

Yea, unfortunately Forza 5 has those (I think theyre called) sprite images of the crowds of people on the side of the tracks, they constantly stare straight on at you no matter what direction you are facing them lol That's a good idea, I did notice a similar effect on a rock on Grid Map by the tunnel. Maybe that can be implemented for the trees as well, it looks as though they are completely 3d WITH animations, Im sure that's a source of FPS drop on maps like DRI and other large forest-y maps.

 

The rotating image is called a billboard.

 

in technical terms? Like a constantly forward facing 2D image relative to your position in 3D space?

EDIT: Just googled sprite images, and its similar to what I described (road-side crowds in FM5 for example) that its a single picture of, lets say a single person, that is added into a larger image with multiple "single" images (or multiple single person images) pasted together to form what appears to be a crowd of people, but is only one picture. One of these essentially with a bunch of trees instead of people (while it may look like complete crap) may be easier for lower end computers to handle. And then, for a higher end computer, have the option to use the pre-installed 3d trees.

 

Yea I noticed that, like when u drive away from some trees, (especially if you have low or medium graphics settings on) the trees basically turn into oblong gray pieces of doo doo, which is I guess the games way of keeping resources at hand, rather than have all the 3d trees loaded throughout the whole map full time. I just went into Drive and examined it and that's definitely what happens...with full graphics tho, the trees look 3D from far however

 

They could make a slider for the distance which the trees change into a 3D object. The minimum could be around 1 meter.

 

They put so much work into those trees
http://www.beamng.com/entries/9-The-process-of-creating-vegetation

 

I know, I read that thread about the tree modeling, that's what sparked it in my head, that the trees have so much weight in that they aren't just 2d images. Maybe having a slider like the one that was mentioned above to adjust the tree distance. Maybe even a slider that adjusts tree density (tree per acre for example) since when the trees are painted onto the terrain from the in game editor, its essentially a paint brush that you can adjust density (pressure) and size of the brush (size). Maybe implement a slider that just recalls the brushstroke pattern density and size values or something similar, and edits those values on the fly while sliding it. To me, that seems like a logical and very possible way of reducing FPS drag, since the trees/vegetation seems to be a pretty popular FPS killer.

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Basically what you said, except instead of distance the change occurs, the slider would in theory reduce the number of trees, or density. I only say this because those sliders in edit mode do what I'm talking about while u "paint".

 

The main problem may not be polygons but instead draw calls. The sheer volume of objects that need to be rasterized in a scene, each with its own position, orientation, and scale, could alone cause issues with processing. Even the Wiki mentions that placing many objects, independent of total polycount, can eat up processing quickly. Thus, lowering tree density would boost FPS.

The main issues with changing the density of trees are that the trees have been painted on to certain surfaces, e.g., the vegetation tool does the density processing, and only while being used. It's certainly possible, but I can't imagine that there's currently support for such a system. Secondly, vegetation is often purposefully placed, often as an obstacle. There's a chance you could access areas and take shortcuts that the developers never intended (such as in races or multiplayer car chases), which would be cheating.

 

Is there currently a distance limit on shadows or are they all rendered at once?

 

Is the limit itself adjustable? Considering hills and trees tend to block where you'd be seeing shadows, it'd be nice to have the extra performance but retaining nearby shadows.