Treeparty-BE Released
Community Forums/Showcase/Treeparty-BE Released
| ||
 What is Treeparty - Blitz3D Edition? Treeparty is a Blitz3d library application that allows the developer to include highly detailed, realistically animated 3d mesh trees into their Blitz3D applications.   More screenshots, tnformation and demo downloads at - http://gothasoft.com |
| ||
Here's an in-game shot of some of the trees -   |
| ||
| Looks great. I'd like to try the demo, but I refuse to register just to download! |
| ||
| Sorry about that, the login stuff is to mainly prevent hot-linking site content. As we are gearing up to release free model/texture and audio packs the system was installed to prevent any remote linking to our libraries. I'll release the registeration requirement for now. |
| ||
| hmm, I have downloaded the demo but all i get is an error message. Logfile output: windows error Das angegebene Modul wurde nicht gefunden. at D:\Projects\My.SRC\Teggo\MoleBox\molebox2\bootup\mbx_DLL.cpp(841) Any fix? |
| ||
| Checking on that now, sorry for the troubles. ADD: Looks like the bug in the installer was found, I'll need about an hour to fix this and put up a fresh install.. Sorry guys. ADD: Okay just put a fresh install, hopefully this solves the problems. Also by chance are you running windows98 os? ADD: Ah ha, seems the compressor is a bit fussy. My beta test team finally was able to reproduce the error, a simple reboot of the OS was all that was required. Please not this is for the demo only, the commercial copy is uncompressed and works as normal blitz code. |
| ||
| Yes, the new demo works. But like any newer B3D App in Windowmode it only runs with 5 (max 12fps). Specs: Amd AthlonXP 64 3200+ 1 GB Ram ATI X800Pro 256 MB PS: The trees look very nice. Also the Watertower, thx for this. I don't own B3D but Bmax. In which way are the trees saved. Simple B3D? or a native format? |
| ||
| Hi glad it works for you, not sure why you'd be getting 5fps however. The trees arent really an exported model, they are produced dynamically as the calls are made to the core engine. Hence rendering it useless to bmax/b3d users. Animations and tree variants are also made on the fly so no two trees act or look the same. This wouldnt be possible with a static/animated model export unless the model had millions of animtation frames. I don't yet own the b3d sdk, or bmax for that matter, but if there seems to be enough following for this product I'll look into purchasing those applications and porting the treeparty code over to it. |
| ||
| Hi. This is very nice. Do you have an LOD system so the user can have over 1000+ trees? Also can the tree be disabled to just be static? For example if the user moves 100 feet away from the tree, I'd like to just disable animation and swap it for a single quad dummy tree etc. |
| ||
| Oooh, tree stuff. I like tree stuff. Nicely priced too. I'll take a snifter at this tomorrow - Mother says it's time for bed. |
| ||
| Hi, to try and answer a few questions. Yes theres a LOD system, trees have several states of LOD 1a) Full detail / animations 2a) Partial anims 3a) at user defined distance the tree is replaced with a 2 poly billboard. Theres alot of 'under the hood' tricks going as well, for example - some surfaces are combined at greater distances. The entire system is actually built for speed. I made this system for a game project im working on and decided to localize it and release it as a lib. I needed a system simular to LOTRO's where I could have the feeling of many hundreds of trees in the distance but yet keeping the detail 'real' for upclose ranges. |
| ||
| I'm not following this - I downloaded the demo and I got a tree editor - but it doesn't do anything. It doesn't demonstrate anything. I want the demo that "klepto2" had - he seems to have seen trees. Ideally, I want a compiled demo that shows the trees in a test level - a bit like the BlitzTreed3D demo. EDIT: Hold on - i just found a tree - I pressed a button and it appeared on the screen. I shall investigate further. |
| ||
| I quite like this. I am a BlitzTree3D owner - but I see this as the only true Blitz alternative. I'm interested in buying. However, I would like to see a compiled demo - ie a test level to see this in action. |
| ||
| Hi puki, press keys 0 - 9 to load the demo trees. I'll compile a small terrain demo using treeparty. I'll post back when its completed. |
| ||
| I'll wait here. |
| ||
| One thing with the demo version is that not all the billboard trees seem to match the source tree - sometimes they alter in size by far too much - also when approaching a tree, that has been billboarded, there is a substantial pause as the full mesh is loaded back - baring in mind the demo only features a single tree. |
| ||
| WAIT A MINTUE!!! IS THIS BLITZTREE 3D 2? You are "Ronnie Smith" I'm going to run checks on your account. This is most exciting - I probably won't have a dry night tonight. |
| ||
| He is. Emergency, Emergency!!! I smell BlitzTree 2. |
| ||
| I will be able to alter my sig directing people to the old AlienCodec site to this new one. I fought like a sabre-tooth slug to get TGC to resell the AlienCodec stuff. I even offered to buy them out. Wooo, hooo. This is most exciting. |
| ||
| How about BlitzGrass 2 as well? |
| ||
Okay almost fnished the walk-through demo, this demo just takes Mark's castle demo and adds the tree library to it. |
| ||
| Finished! you can grab the level download here http://www.gothasoft.com/Downloads/tabid/58/Default.aspx No registeration required. Also for those that have purchased Treeparty already, login to your web account and grab the source code for this demo. Treeparty 1.1 should be ready by tommorow. It smooths out the pop in transitions from billboard to mesh. Also added several new features - thanks for the requests to those that sent them in. |
| ||
| Well I was stuttering at 1000 trees but that's expected. I doubt I'll use even 20 trees at once anyhow. This is like speedtree for blitz. I really like it man. And the trees look absolutely stupendous. |
| ||
| Thanks for the comments, Yah 1000 trees is a bit unrealistic for any game engine, i just tossed that amount in there for stress testing. However, with the latest update the core is even more capable of running 1000 ( at once ) entities. Finally, it took all day but finally, i got smooth transitions in. No more popup billboards or instantly appearing detail trees.. Each level of detail seamless blends to the next level. I've updated trhe walk through demo and reposted in the site, grab it here for a look: http://gothasoft.com Update notes for the newly released 1.1. Version 1.1 * ADDED: tpPickmode(tree, value) - allows you to set a pickmode per tree entity. * ADDED: Gobalized the treepartyBE media dir, you can now set it to what you like. * FIXED: tpcolor() and tpambient(0 now works properly * ADDED: Distance smoothing bloom with adjustable alpha boundries * ADDED: select mask or alpha per billboard ( globalized ) * OPTIMIZED: render routine is much faster. * ADDED: smooth transitions!, each level of detail now smoothly transforms, no more poping. |
| ||
| Current demo runs at 90 FPS+ here ... (C2D E6600 @ 3Ghz, 8800GTS) very nice but the last detail level switch to full detail still seems to have some kind of popup. Looks like a harsh mitmap level/texture size change or a similar effect But definitely supperb speed, nice fading in and out. Much better than BlitzTree3D ever was I fear ... (most useless library I've ever bought. BlitzGrass at least did it job ...) |
| ||
| ..one question...I have Blitztree 3D, and it was nice but I dislike fact that I was unable to control light over tree as entity, lightmapping it or whatever..what is case with this system?? |
| ||
| Where's the new demo? I can't download it. EDIT: It's okay - I sorted it, I activated scripts for your site - all sorted. |
| ||
| One thing I don't like is the way the leaves spin as you walk towards the trees - Blitztree 3D didn't suffer from this. With BlitzTree 3D the leaves rotated based on the camera, with this new engine the leaves spin around even if you don't move the camera - they just spin as you approach a tree. If you stand under a tree and look up at the leaves and turn the camera, then the leaves stay in position (which is realistic). However, if you walk forwards or backwards, then they spin for no reason at all. EDIT: The demo runs fine at 1280x1024 - 32bit (that's as high as I can test it with my monitors). I didn't notice any problems or slowdown. |
| ||
| Hi, Dreamora, thanks for the comments. the 'smooth transitions' is still a work in progress. It'll only get better as each update passes. Alien, this system uses several methods for lighting. You can color tint a tree the same way Blitztree allowed, this gives ya full seasonal shading for a single tree. You may uses the ambient method which litghs the entire tree bases off a single r,g,b. Or you may use standard dirext X lighting, trees pickup lighting based on your maps setup. Puki, You can toggle to old blitztree spin orientation by setting the prongs to 'globalized' frmo the editor. Just export the tree from there and load it into lib. The older blitztree method is much slower and i personaly recommned using the treepary spin orientational to achieve max. speed with a blanket of trees. Version 1.2 road-map -Improving the 'smooth transitions' further. -Changing billboard export ( from the editor ) to use alpha level. -adding ability to give each tree exported from the editor its own animation speeds. -New commands: tpWindGust() - sends a sequence through the scene much like the editor 'Wind Gust' button does. -Adding ability to strip leaves from a tree, this will be good for barren maps where you dont want prongs showing. Also in the works: GrassParty-BE, ha sounds like a highschool name for a weekend block party. |
| ||
| With regard to the 'spinning' - we seem to be talking about two separate instances of leaves spinning. The Globalized button you mention deactivates one form of spinning - but not the other. The one I am talking about is the one where you stand up against the trunk of a tree - look up at the canopy of the tree - then move forwards and backwards - the leaves spin (seemingly for no reason at all) - Globalized or non-Globalized. |
| ||
| Ah Y-axis rotations.. I see what your talking about. I'll add a toggle for rotating on each axis, you'll be able to turn off Y-axis spinning to mimic the blitztree pattern. |
| ||
| Very impressive. Really makes a difference to that old castle demo. Runs very smooth and fast here. |
| ||
| Walkthrough is smooth and fast... Editor is really slow, min 5 fps when using arrow keys, max 49 fps when using the look with the mouse thing |
| ||
| Any progress yet on the Y-axis rotation toggle? |
| ||
| Yup, should be released sometime tommorow.. Im adding a few new functions as well so it's taking a bit longer. I've finished the changeable rotation modes however, works nice! |
| ||
| Anybody else interested in buying this? I certainly am. I just want to make sure the thing is pretty much finished first. Certainly looks like it might be very nice. I'm hoping that it is better than BlitzTree3D to make the purchase worth it. Anyone actually bought it yet (or am I going to be the guinea-pig)? |
| ||
| Yes there have been treeparty customers already, I have been working closely with several of them to release these recent updates. Their ideas and input have been a huge help and treeparty is rapidly growing up! With that said, Version 1.2 is finished. Version 1.2 * ADDED: a new rotation system, much smoother than before * ADDED: comand tpGetTreeID(tree) - will return a blitz ID handle for the given tree ID * CHANGES: Master pivot is now 'Unhidden' by default, any additional tree attacahements shuld now show. * GENERAL: numerous tidy-ups The new walk-through demo has also been posted - http://www.gothasoft.com/Default.aspx?tabid=81 Hope you like it! :) |
| ||
| Oooh, my system just about gets away with running 1,000 trees at 1280 x 1024 at 32bit. Wow - and none of that Y-axis rotation bentness anymore. This thing looks amazing now. The Y-axis rotating fix alone makes staring up at the tree canopys a joy - especially with so many trees close together forming canopys - I even thought I saw a squirrel Larging up a tree. |
| ||
| any plans to add a grass/foliage system to this as well? One lib to control all the vegitation in a game would be reather attractive. |
| ||
| I just found some problems running the castle demo... This is the first:  When the demo starts, the trees are transparent... and they take quite a while to become fully "solid"... is that intentional? The second concerns the "transition effect":  This is what I'm seeing from the distance... but if I get closer, instead of a smooth transition, the "sprite tree" fades away - then I see nothing - then the "tree model" starts fading in. Also the "tree model" I see is completly different from the "sprite tree", see the picture below, from the same tree, just a bit closer:  Maybe if you fade out the 2D tree and fade in the 3D tree at the same time, you could get away with it... |
| ||
| I think the initial fade-in is like some kind of global loading - Some people spin an unseen camera before starting a level to overcome the jittering. I think he is just doing it all in one. I know what you mean with the fading from billboard to full. Still, it is starting to take shape. |
| ||
| I just bought my copy. This thing is only £11.00 UK - cheap as chips. People should buy it - it is the law. |
| ||
| A 1000 trees is ridiculous, lol! Far too dense and the system struggles (1280 x 1024 32-bit colour). 500 is much better - but not as smooth as I would like - but very fast. By 300 trees it's perfect - smooth, very fast and still quite dense. You might want to check the positioning of the trees in that demo though - some blocked the castle entrance and actually went through the stone! And the loading of the trees needs to be seamless - load those at the initial position before showing that view. |
| ||
| It's okay - He's randomnally placing the trees. However: Mmm, having bought it - I tried to use the 1.2 update with the demo code - it doesn't work??? The 1.0 include file is fine - the 1.2 one doesn't work??? |
| ||
| This must be something to do with the media - I found that if I copy the full contents of tpMedia to the demo version then it means neither the 1.0 or 1.2 include will work??? |
| ||
| Other than me, who has bought this? |
| ||
| I've fixed the problem - the version 1.2 include expects the media to be in a directory called TpMedia2 - as opposed to TpMedia. |
| ||
| Sorry about that, in 1.1 i allowed a global setting to define the media directory, I just forgot to reset it to tpMedia. As for the fade in, the fade out of the billboard to the full tree is a two step process. Since the billboard and the tree use the same handle ( lower surface count ) it is near impossible fade one-to-the-other as its the same identical blitz ID mesh. But seeing as there is great concern over this i will add a toggleable option to allow a 2nd surface for the billboard. This will allow you to fade in transitions from billboard to the tree and vice versa. I havent plans on adding vegitation to treeparty but i do have a robust vegitation system in the works. It handles grass, plants and other y-rotating plants. It's an interesting thought to add the vegitation system to treeparty but probably a bit unrealistic as the two systems are worlds apart. Grass systems require a dense layer of data and usually are monitored with a grid system where as the tree system is more of a point-and-show system. None the less i'll further research this as I think it's a great idea to have two combined, just not practical. Im under the hood with version 1.3 as we speak, some new features and better wind control. Ability to assign indivisual trees a wind pattern etc. Also im bringing back the seasons setting, optional of course, but you'll be able to render numerous trees off a single mesh with just altering the season setting. Much more included in 1.3! More later. |
| ||
| 1.3? Bring it on! Just flipping the lid off the baby oil. |
| ||
| Since the billboard and the tree use the same handle ( lower surface count ) it is near impossible fade one-to-the-other as its the same identical blitz ID mesh Perhaps, but what I'm talking about is the noticable initialisation of the trees fading in at the beginning - the first view inside the castle (from no trees visible what-so-ever). As you move about it works well. Can't you just delay the initial flipping of the draw screen until they have appeared? A black screen for 2 seconds is no hardship (looks as if it's still loading). |
| ||
| Ahh yes, I can add a value to the load function such as; tpLoadTreed(file, collision, state) Whereas the 'state' would be the initial load in rate, 0 would be normal and 1 would be an instant load. As I had mentioned before the system was developed for high tree counts, maps consisting of several thousands of trees would normally cause huge load times at start up. So the method it now uses gets around this issue as it does not actually load the tree, it caches one copy ( instance ) of the tree and distributes it accordingly. This allows maps to have virtually ten of thousands of trees without any noticeable loadtime delays. |
| ||
| I have a feeling he may have a fair amount of "Sibly's" code in there that may slow the start. I have trimmed the demo source and found the trees appear instantly. |
| ||
I've begun implementing a lighting system for a forest-type area. Basically 2 parts - canopy lighting and auto adjustment of ambient lighting (ie it gets lighter as you move into a clearing, and darker as you get under the tree canopies). |
| ||
| i tried the demos and this things excellent, should have another buyer in a few days. @puki love that screenshot, amazing whats still being done with blitz. Bet your having a blast with them trees. |
| ||
| My word Puki - lovely stuff... IPete2. |
| ||
| Technically, I can make it look a whole lot better - I can switch out the bark textures and leaf ones for commercial game media ones - I've got a load of SpeedTree Media. |
| ||
Here is a somewhat lighter shot: I'll start work on a shot that uses better media - just to see if there is a big difference. |
| ||
| look good puki! any guides on how your doing this? |
| ||
| I've also updated the media in the next release. Cleand up the prong textures and such.. 1.3 is complete - just running some external tests before I put it up. I've got a few suprises in store for this release. I think you guys will love it. Nice lighting work Puki, I too was considering a lighting method using vert lighting for the tips of the trees and dark shadow lighting on the bottom prongs, this would give an awesome overall effect. |
| ||
| 1.3 is complete! Self-touch! Here I come big-boy! Don't play hard-to-get for too long. |
| ||
| "Nice lighting work Puki, I too was considering a lighting method using vert lighting for the tips of the trees and dark shadow lighting on the bottom prongs, this would give an awesome overall effect." Sounds like a nice feature for 1.4 :D |
| ||
| I bet mine is faster. |
| ||
| Good news, just uploaded 1.3 heres a brief rundown - Version 1.3 * CHANGED: the default media directory has been reset to /tpMedia * ADDED: tpGetTreeFromPart(part) returns a blitzID of the tree part sent to it, used for picking ( thanks Gillissie) * CHANGED: improved the overall look of the tree animations * ADDED: tpWindGust(strength#) - sends a wind gust globally throughout the tree engine * ADDED: 'leaf drifting' - you can now toggle on leaf droppings, trees will randomly drop leaves at your defined intervals * MISC: leaf drifting is now effected by wind gusts * more tidy-ups to the core If you havent tried the walk-through demo yet, or if you have, I suggest giving this one another look. :) Ive updated the walk-through demo on the site - grab it here http://www.gothasoft.com/Default.aspx?tabid=81 |
| ||
| I'm not keen on the falling leaves - with my densely packed forest the leaves are too big and pass through trees like ghosts. Still, in fairness, some people will like this feature. You'll also need to make up a new demo. Personally, I think "Sibly's" original Castle demo is too cartoony. TreeParty is a very good app (as close to SpeedTree that I have seen) that needs a better textured landscape. It's time to get rid of "Markio" and the castle. A demo like the original BlitzTree3D will be a good advert. |
| ||
| Thanks for the comments, you can scale the leaves using the global tpLeafScale# variable. I will eventually recreate a new demo playground. Just right now im swamped, got 3 projects im working on and updating treeparty in between. Not to mention the website is new and ive been debugging that as well. |
| ||
| why don't you make him one puki :) |
| ||
| Wow Blitz tree 2 Looks like Ill have to make another desktop forest screensaver. Is this really by the maker of the first Blitztree? If so why not name it blitztree 2? Might attract more people who remember the original, or can you not because of alien codec? I will be buying this, and I look forward to a new vegetation system! |
| ||
| I've now updated my sig from TGC's AlienCodec site to the new Treeparty page. |
| ||
| Hi Loktar, Blitztree3d is a copyrighted name now under the authority of TGC. I have no more rights to Blitztree3d as it was passed to tgc during the buyout. Vegetation system! you bet. I wasnt going to let this all yet but I see no harm in it, Im currently working on a suite of libs for blitz3d that will allow a developer to pretty much piece together an fabulous outdoor system. Treeparty-be is just the begining. The pieces im working on currently are - TreeParty Treeparty - Shrub extension GrassParty SkyscapeParty WeatherParty ElementalParty Once complete, the developer should be able to focus entrely on making their games and not worrying with the cores involved with making the outdoor engine. Most of these core parts are displayed in this screenshot http://www.blitzbasic.com/gallery/view_pic.php?id=1615&gallery=hr&page=1 While they arent ready for release, they are birthed and gathering my attention. |
| ||
| oooo any planson releasing a 'party' editor to bring all these tools together with terrain stuff? |
| ||
| i know puki is only allow to get overly excited but the news of your future releases has got me slighlty more excited about blitz3d than usual. I was planning on moving away but im sticking around just a bit longer :-) |
| ||
| Just a heads up on 1.4, i've re-worked the editor's billboard exporting, it'll support alpha transparencies now so the backdrops are much cleaner! Also im installing the smooth-fade transiton set to 1.4. It'll fade the billboard to inital mesh much more cleaner as well. Installed support for the first extension pack 'treeparty shrub pack' think theres a shrub showing in the screenshot below. Have a peek at 1.4's new backdrop and alpah billboarding: click me |
| ||
| im interested in to buy this if I can with ease apply this on to mesh builted terrains (not heightmaps) especially grass system...im quite dissapinted with BlitzTree3D and Grass engine provided with it (I brought it but never use becouse of impossible way to do lighting, and generally place trees and lightmap them, etc..quite closed system)...so if this new stuff is not lacking things as previous systems I'll buy it..kicking part of this will be if somehow possible to build my own trees, based on specific set of MUST be rules, provided from lib developer so basically i can do my own trees, outside of generic tool provided here...that with possibility to texture it and do lighting will kick ass..and I'll buys it without thinking a second.. |
| ||
| Hi Alien, Placement of the trees is nothing like Blitztree was, this engine treats the trees as a normal BlitzID, for the most part. Things like: Positionentity MyTree, x#, y#, z# are allowed. Theres no heightmap to deal with. Lighting is completely possible, unlike blitztree3d where you had to use color sets and the tree prongs were set to no-light - this new engine fully accepts DX lighting or you can do vert lighting, its your choice. The tree media is easier than blitztree ever was. You can make tons of tree types with the enclosed media and the media tree editor or you can build your own. its easy. this is a simple shot of me building a tree -  Basically you rig the trunk mesh with joints, label every joint you wish for the tree engine to interact with ( do animations ) you name the joint mSway(anumber).. you can have as many sway points as you want or none at all. Next you'd attache additional joints to the trunk joints and label them prong1-prong10000, each of these joints represents a placeholder for the engine to deal with pronging. treeparty handles all animations dynamically in realtime, you dont have to animate a thing. I hope this answers your questions. |
| ||
| so, I can build my own trees in 3dsmax, export it as b3d and then load it in your tool where i do rigging, or I can do rigging within 3DSMAX environment, and do additional tuning in your editor??? And can you put a bit more light over grass and weather system, Im very interested in to that actually, of course if thats open for me to use it on mesh terrains and easy apply my own textures and eventual lighting of course... |
| ||
| Hi, yes you can use 3dmax or whatever you like. My tool does not do rigging, you'll have to rig with max, charfx, milkshape or something like that. My tools simply compiles all the tree data so the engine can understand it. You can change things within my tool to tweak your tree the way you like it. Basically it allows you to modify your import so you dont have to model 1000 tree models just to get tree variation. You may use mesh terrains all you like, in fact I use them to build the engines, just the demo uses a heightmap. As matter of fact, this screen shot http://www.blitzbasic.com/gallery/view_pic.php?id=1615&gallery=hr&page=1 shows most of the systems in their early stages. See there, hard mesh for terrains. :) Im actually going to be combing the weather and sky engine into a single package, it'll handle all weather effects, rain, snow, heat shimmers, and it handles degrees of each level. Combine that with a dynamically lit sky with ever changing cloud formations and smooth transition from day to night. The weather/sky engine will handle a 24hour clock format and display all transitions throughout. Grass system is still a major work in progress, as I have made some advancements to it this week, it still needs alot of tuning. Probably another week or so. Again you dont have to use heightmap for the grass system either. It'll be able to handle litterally millions of placeholders, grass spots, without much slowdown as Im developing a grid system to handle the stress of looking up distances and what not. You can't see it in that shot, but the Elemental engine places things like cricket,s bees, butterflies, frogs etc throughout the scene and they actually interact with the other engines IE: butterflys spawn from grass piles etc.. crickets come out at night time only, elementals vanish during thunderstorms etc.. |
| ||
| hmm..if that is case i'll buy all that packages...I really need that... |
| ||
| one question more about grass system...does grass units going to be animated?? And is it possible to control them individually in sense that when my character passing trough it, closest one actually waving (like in Titan Quest) or I will be able to control that by my own?? |
| ||
| You pass what entity_types you wish to collide with the grass meshes, the grass will actually layover as it is walked on and it makes a nice crunchy sound :) Yes its fully animated. Im going to post a demo of the game here shortly. |
| ||
| oh..well..show me that and you got me for sure... :) |
| ||
| ..when you expecting grass system to be done...roughly?? |
| ||
| Grass engine will be completed in a week tops. This is a 26mb demo, its a level off my entire engine. Far from complete and the models ( people ) are simply placeholders, please don't be to critical just yet :) The sky engine is not in there, only weather, time, trees, grass ( beta ) and elemental engines can be seen. Demo tips: use mouelook, right click to walk, left click to swing, arrows to move. Use notepad to edit game.config to setup the settings the way you like. Alt-q to change time Alt-???? cant remember the weather starter, try them all. :) screenshot: www.blitzbasic.com/gallery/view_pic.php?id=1615&gallery=hr&page=1 Please notE: the demo was compiled with and old beta version of treeparty-be, we are at treeparty-be v1.4 now. much improvments. This grass system in the demo is only a rough draft, but it is the basis behind the release version. demo download: http://gothasoft.com/temp/GameEngine2.rar |
| ||
| ..downloading..cant wait to see grass in action.. |
| ||
| ..MAV here.. |
| ||
| Ahhhh crud, seems im hard referencing a directory, lemme check it out. Sorry. |
| ||
| ..okay..i really wanna see that grass thingy.. |
| ||
| Fixed it, http://gothasoft.com/temp/GameEngine2.rar |
| ||
| ..okay..downloading |
| ||
| ..okay..its working nice...I didnt saw many grass units on scene, so I hope in future demos, it will be possible to see what grass system can actually deal with regarding number of grass units over terrain, and second 'request'is, if possible to make grass units whats nearest to main character(collide with it) waving, not remaining down on ground, but waving in fashio like in Titan Quest..it will be really nice especially if engine can push really big number of grass units in order to create good looking grass field...it will be excellent to watch grass waving while character walking trough it.. |
| ||
| I agree, the grass has presure values, i have it set to laydown in that demo ( but it does come back up after some time ).. Alternatively you can set the pressure much less to achieve the wave effect you mentioned. As i mentioned earlier, thats an extreme adopter version of the system, it'll be able to push land masses of grass once I complete it. |
| ||
| Great Stuff! You just got a new customer and I can't wait for all the the other products as well. Keep up the Good Work! |
| ||
| can we start a new thread on this, i hate it when threads get this long which i regular view. The walk around demo with grass etc is very impressive, i think this will be a top product for blitz3d and expand it's life even longer. |
| ||
| Yep I agree with (tu) sinu - this is a nice demo. Good work dude! IPete2. |
| ||
| Hold on a minute - a lot's happened since I was here last night. I feel some people are trying to get a bit too friendly with my best friend "Sausagedonkey". Get your own donkeys - mine can code - and he can talk - probably can fly too. |
| ||
| "Sausagedonkey"!!! no more updates for puki. :) 1.4 is shaping up! this has been the most challenging update yet as it has required alot of changes to the core but i think it'll be worth it. Billboard to tree, tree to billboard transitions fixed! They now seamlessly blend to one another. Billboards now better match the actual trees; size, rotation and coloring is more accurately passed to the billboard routine. More so, the billboard routine can better fit the billboard to match the tree it is replacing. Also gone is the alpha screen billboards, we'll be usuing png transparencies for the billboards, soooo much cleaner looking this way. Tons more in this update as well! I hope to have 1.4 uploaded today but no guarentes. |
| ||
| I've got to go to bed in 3 and a half hours - hurry, hurry, hurry. Or I will snap one of your legs off and then you will be "Wonkydonkey" |
| ||
| Sweet-sausages!!! Since 1.3 I hadn't bothered stress testing it. I've increased my forest to 2,000 trees and it is still running nice. I'll see if I can take it up to 3,000 trees. |
| ||
| It is running 3,000 trees. Slight performance hit - but you wouldn't notice it if you had not seen it running 2,000 trees. |
| ||
| Um, make that 5,000 trees. |
| ||
| What the Sweet-Johnson-Nora? I just upped it to 10,000 trees - it is still going strong. TEN THOUSAND TREES!!! |
| ||
| Um. FIFTEEN THOUSAND TREES!!! I'll just repeatedly smash my face against the wall to make sure I am not dreaming. |
| ||
| Okay - what's going on here? I've just jumped to: TWENTY THOUSAND TREES!!! I get a black screen for about 5+ seconds then they appear in all their glory. |
| ||
| I whacked it up to: T H I R T Y THOUSAND TREES!!! Took about 60 seconds for it to kick-in. I'm running this at 1024 x 768 - 32 bit. Blitz camera is running at default view distance - I'm culling trees beyond 1,000 units. |
| ||
| 50,000 - F I F T Y THOUSAND TREES!!! - 50,000 At this point I could hear my hard-drive thrashing a bit, so possibly I ran out of RAM. Still, 50,000 trees is like some kind of legendary feat. At least I know I can do 30,000 without too much of a sweat. I didn't try 40,000 so, I'll test that. However 50,000 is the current record. SpeedTree eat your heart out. |
| ||
| Nine posts in a row? Why don't you just use the Edit button instead of spamming up Swampdonkey's thread? It amazes me how someone who's actually USEFUL like GFK gets banned for using a harmless word, yet the mods let people like this storm around spamming and stealing. @ Swampdonkey: Awesome app! Although it's a shame you can't show off anything here anymore without someone immature butting in to whore all the attention. The lighting in your latest demo gives off some creepy vibes for an interesting atmosphere. Keep up the great work! |
| ||
| Who pulled your chain? |
| ||
| @ Puki LOL heheheh |
| ||
| Version 1.4 is finished. Version 1.4 ADDED: tpSetFov(tree, per%) - you can give trees indivisual lod clip settings now CHANGED: improved the distant billboard animations CHANGED: billboards now use PNG instead of bmp's ADDED: billboards now load with transparencies exported from the editor CHANGED: editor now exports PNGs CHANGED: editor now corectly blends the billboard images on export ADDED: smooth transitions - billboards transform into mesh trees instead of pop-in ADDED: additional support for heavely stressed maps, better core management MISC: once again, core engine optimizations FIXED: billboarding now better matches the actual mesh tree, scale , size and color corrections A new public demo has been posted as well - http://www.gothasoft.com/Default.aspx?tabid=81 I think im going to take a break form treeparty-BE now as a week full of updates have been released. Im pleased with the current build and ready to move on to a diffrent package. If you experience any troubles with treeparty please use our support forums and we'll look into it. 1.5 road-map has been laid out - read it here http://www.gothasoft.com/Default.aspx?tabid=84&EntryID=2 , expect to see this update after i finihs up a few other projects. it's been fun, thanks for the comments and the support! |
| ||
| im waiting for grass engine.. |
| ||
| Hey, just one note. I don't know if its possible or not, but if you go up high, say in a game where you fly above the clouds (flight sim, or overhead cameras in rts games etc) the billboards look really bad. This lib is awsome for games that have the camera at ground level, under the trees. But I wonder if there is anything that can be doen for games that view the trees from above them? |
| ||
| This has to be the best possible tree system for Blitz3D. I dont think anyone can do better. Good job. I do hope the system allows you to choose wich bones to animate and wich not to per tree. I dont think letting a large tree sway from its base looks very natural.. Otherwise.. perfect |
| ||
| Boomboom, i'll do something about that. RifRaf, yah, theres control over the bones that are animated. Any bone named Sway#(num) is animated. For a technical command I may add a tpFunc() to allow turning off bones per tree via code. |
| ||
| Definitely looking forward to GrassParty and SkyscapeParty. |
| ||
| Speaking about Grassparty-BE, ive actually started the core for this package, I was wanting to get a few views on grass placement. My old system, Blitzgrass3D used several methods, none of which i think were too popular with the community. Theres heightmap placement, standard position placement, positioning on height scale etc.. The problem is no two game engines are coded the same. While one may want to place large amounts of grass via a heightmap, another may find it does not work for them. I want to add the most standard, universal, placement option I can come up with. Which is grass=gpLoadGrass(blah blah) : positionentity grass, x, y, z. While this is the standard call to load a grass entity into the scene, it can become quite time consuming for LARGE scale maps. The core system sits on a huge virtual grid system, when initalizing the core you give it the lowest x/z position of your map the most x/z position of the map. The grid is then laid out in type chunks. Entitys are assigned to the chunks, sub chunks are then divided down to increase performance. Each entity utilizes a very small memory foothold so allowing utterly 70K plus grass entites is actually a reality. Its just figuring out how the community would like the grass placed. Example of grid initalizing: InitGrassParty(x1, z1, x2, z2) thats it, simple huh. Theres no real way for me to determine the boundries of a map using blitz3d commands, I wish there were. For a grid system to flurish it must utilize grid points. Grid points require some sorta organization throughout. So the only real alternative is to have the user supply the lowermost x/z positions of their map and the upper most x/z positions of the map, y positions isn't factor in by the portal examiner. Once the x/z's are given the core creates a complete virtual grid system and assigns grid points, for very large maps each grid point is broke down into sub points and assigned an entirely new grid structure. So checking things like 'did the player step on the grass?' is as simple as checking against only a handle full of grass entities instead of the 50,000 entities loaded into the system. Blitzgrass3d used a single grid system, while it was extremely fast at 5,000 grass entities, it suffered with large amounts of entities thrown at it. The lack of grid points and sub grid points were noticeable. I tend to correct this from the get-goe by intergrating the sub-systems, one level deep, the developer can treat a loaded map as several loaded maps giving him/her near unlimited grass entity possibilites. That's the basis of the system, but the current delima is placement. What is the best way or ways to allow placing grass onto the developers map. I have several ideas but don't want to spend days implementing them if someone else has a better idea or someone wants it done differently. I'm open to suggestions on this, please send them in! :) |
| ||
| Where's the new media? I don't see it in my 1.4 downloads. EDIT: Come to think of it - what was the lighting change you made in 1.3? It's not in the version docs and I didn't notice any different lighting. EDIT: If the new media is the 1.2 media then I am seeing some very blatantly different tree sizes from billboard to full mesh. |
| ||
| New media? there's no new media currently. The new demo shows a shrub, but thats was a test for the Shrub extension coming later. Lighting changes were made in 1.2 that allowed the pronsg to accept dx lighting, not based purely on vert tinting. |
| ||
| Mmm, I just downloaded the 1.2 media to use with 1.4 include and some of the billboards are actually lying down flat (horizontal). I downloaded the 1.2 media as the 1.4 include was complaining about the media I already had. With regard to lighting: "IKG" posted: The lighting in your latest demo gives off some creepy vibes for an interesting atmosphere. I'm realising he must be talking about your game demo, not the Treeparty demo. |
| ||
| One of the trees effected is the tall skinny one - the one that is a trunk with a few leaves. The billboard lies down horizontal. Ignore my comment about the tree sizes from billboard to full mesh - I've noted that this is just due to the way you are now implementing the billboards - the 1.3 version were more 'ghosted' so I didn't really notice the change. Personally, I might edit my 1.4 include to use the old billboard system as I prefer that. The new ones certain look great - much better quality, it's just you notice the size difference more now. |
| ||
| tree2.tp is the one that appears broken (horizontal billboard) - the others seem okay. EDIT: tree3.tp is still broken - but that is the one that has been broken right from the beginning. |
| ||
| Hi, could you take off the limit of not being able to create trees in the demo of the editor? It would be alot better to evaluate if we could make thhem and use it as an editor, but just not save them out. |
| ||
| The other thing I forgot to mention is, since you added in the falling leaves, you are not hiding the master leaves - so the master leaves all appear in a heap at 0,0,0 - ie you need to HideEntity the masters after loading. |
| ||
| Already fixed, 1.41, not released yet. thanks for the report. Boom, i would love to do just that but it would expose the media as the pieces have to be loaded in from a directory. Grassparty news: i've completed the grid system! now on to the fun stuff, actual grass things. :) The more I play with this the more I want to make this a procedural grass system, layers of animation and globalized atmospheric controls |
| ||
| tbh the media isn't why anyone would buy or not buy this system. There are a number of free treegen programs out there. The 'gold' is in the system. But I understand :) |
| ||
| Every day seems to be like Christmas eve now. I sit here, nose pressed against the screen - squeaky bone in mouth - waiting hour after hour for "Sausagedonkey" to release something and he quite often does so when I have collapsed and fallen asleep. I get the feeling he is in another time-zone - which is a bit inconvenient. |
| ||
| ..regarding grass placement...Im 3DSMAX user and what I do is to create my whole level within 3DSMAX..grass placement too I can easy do in 3DSMAX over few excellent plug ins..so, my wish is to later when my level is done select and export all grass units, and then load them in to b3d, pass trough hierarchy and change each grass unit made in 3DSMAX with one from your system, at same position x,y,z where origin from 3dsmax was...so basically I would like to have independent PositionGrass Grassunit(x,y,z) command or something like that...I really dont like those automatic things regarding grass becouse I cant control nicely my level design..thats why I never ever used BlitzGrass or BlitzTree before even I purchase it both..but very very limited freedom in use push me far far away from them...I hope this grass engine will be easy to deal with and let me place unites wherever I want and still maintain quite nice speed.. |
| ||
Very early shot of the grass system in action, this is only a test. |
| ||
| how many units in sight engine will be able to deal with?? |
| ||
| In view at one time, roughly 6000. But this depends heavily on the computer being used. In the above shot there is 500 entites running smooth as silk. The overall map can support near unlimited entities. Small memory footprint for each placer holder, less then 1k. |
| ||
| ..my low end is 7600GT, and nice info will be actually FPS count with Vsync disabled so I would like to see that number in correlation with number of units in sight..and by the way, what do you think about my post before regarding management/placement of grass units?? Are you going to provide independent placement command for single unit? Im really looking to see that, if possible.. |
| ||
| The demo, (and infact the demos for 1.1 and 1.2 and 1.3) stops at 6.6meg, and I get a incomplete Rar error. Any ideas why? |
| ||
| No idea H&K, you using a download manager/accelerator by chance? Alien, you'll be able to place individual grass entites with command. As matter of fact Ive got that command in already: gp_LoadGrass(x#, y#, z#, meshname$, skinname$, gird=0) Thats the standard way to input an entity into the grid, I however am going to implement a few other methods such as Height placement, color of terrain placement etc.. So you'll be able to use one of the methods or them all. Even better yet, after you have placed grass on an level just as you like it, im adding a gp_SaveImage() function, this function will save all grass, grid assignments, scale, positions, angles, coloring etc.. you'd use this function in your compiled levels as it increases loadtime by 99%. |
| ||
| No idea H&K, you using a download manager/accelerator by chance? Nope. I did try with Getright first, but that doesnt work. Ive downloaded four times now with normal XP DLder each time |
| ||
| Swampdonkey = Sabata Rh??? If so then good to see you man!!! I wondered where you went for years. EDIT: I wonder if Leadwerks scenegraph code would be a way to optimize your "in view" algorithm. It's over in the BMax forum. |
| ||
| :) Hey ya Chroma, long time no see. Glad to still see some familuars around here. |
| ||
| hey...i know, this threat is old, but maybe wanted to purchase this nice program and i got two questins about it: 1. Did i understand it right, that i´m able to make some trunks in milkshape or so and import it to treeparty 2. I downloaded demo2 ( the editor) but only tree 1 and 2 are running, from the rest i got a MAV...may this be a compatibility problem with vista? |
| ||
| Nice work. Yah 1000 trees is a bit unrealistic for any game engine, i just tossed that amount in there for stress testing. However, with the latest update the core is even more capable of running 1000 ( at once ) entities. Actually, you could easily run at > 60 FPS with over 100,000 trees if you used batched impostoring techniques. However, this would be almost impossible in Blitz3D (without vertex shaders). (But considering this engine is using B3D/DX7, very very nice work :D ) |
   |