18 réponses à ce sujet

[Jesse_the_Thief]

Quick one, is there still this "don't use more than 5 trees" thing still in effect? I see it in the manual, but it was written 234 patches ago. Still need to avoid multiple tree types or what?

Extra credit: does anything in the tree catagory count as a tree against this suggested limit, including shrubs and the like?

[PJ156]

As far as I know anything with a random seed is one towards your limit so that includes shrubs plants and the flower placeables (anything in the trees category). However many have said the limit is not six.

I tend to have 10 - 15 seeds in a complex area once you add shrubs etc and I see no performance issues. Some have reported 100+ is fine.

Suck it and see, but don't feel limited to 6 seeds.

PJ

Edit - the limit is not no of trees but no of seeds, so you could have six sugar pines with different seeds or six different trees or shrubs types it's the same thing, but the consensus is, the limit is not six.

Modifié par PJ156, 20 novembre 2010 - 10:42 .

[c i p h e r]

There never was a hard limit FWIW. I believe it was always a "suggested limit" to avoid the game coming to a crawl. It's been....4 years since the game was released? Hardware advances and software patches have most certainly raised the ceiling on what a computer can reasonably handle. But the only real way to know your system limits is to test the module on the machine that will host it.

[painofdungeoneternal]

Turn off shadows on those trees and it's not nearly as bad. And yes its the seed count which is the real issue.



You need to remember the performance on your system might be ok, some, actually many players, will have systems that are still 3 years old.



I think the key is trying to just do as little as needed soas to imply the look you want. Too much of anything will bring any game to a halt.

[MokahTGS]

I've often used 6-10 seeds in areas and never had an issue and my system is over 3 years old.  

Shadows are the biggest issue. Turn off all shadows except for trees that have thematic value. Trees, bushes, shrubs and plants are all "trees".

Plus, certain trees are worse than others. There are some trees that have huge hits and some that have much lower hits.

Modifié par MokahTGS, 21 novembre 2010 - 02:33 .

[MokahTGS]

I mean that I've routinely used 6-10 unique seeds without any noticeable hits.

[dunniteowl]

This is a good place for more information:

Modeling a Forest.



I have a rather lengthy explanation on my forest experimentations there that will have an impact on forest design and use of trees in general. There's also a lot of good information on other aspects for forest and tree use from others.



Beyond that, most of the advice in this thread is pretty much spot on.



dno

[Bonzoli]

Use the tree cutter plugin. Select a few dozen trees the randomize and group. You' ll see quite a change with just a few tree types.

[casadechrisso]

 I've been spamming my areas with different trees like crazy, not counting the seeds and sometimes using different random seeds for a type too. My conclusion is, hardware that is not ancient can bear it. Trees have never caused me major problems and I never felt the need to remove any. In heavy forest areas the fan on the graphics card speeds up a bit and it might hit the framerate a little, but it's far from unplayable. Other things like grass or certain placeables seem to put much more strain on the card. My (maybe unorthodox) way is, first comes the area's atmosphere, and only if a fix is needed I start fixing. 

Example: This area / 2nd pic  (quite huge too)  runs perfectly fine on my elderly midrange test comps, my main city with almost no trees is horribly choppy. <_<

[dunniteowl]

I have one area where I sort of lost count, but I got up to about 2400 trees or so and the area ran fine. And as I mention in the linked thread in the post above, I use something like 6-8 different species with 3-5 seeds each. I average maybe 36 unique trees in this fashion. As my machine was considered only slightly above the minimums when NWN2 was loaded onto it, I tend to concur with casedechrisso, most machines today and slightly older should be able to handle most of what you'll throw at it, trees-wise.

dno

[casadechrisso]

I've had people with integrated graphics running through those areas, my own laptop with a 8600M chip manages too. My main building/playing comp is an outdated 2ghz workstation with a 8800GT... I'm not sure how ancient you're talking about Chaos, but since I admit I build a little bit for eye candy too (*cough*), I'm really taking my own setup as sort of an average and don't really want to go too far below that. Come on, these comps are nearly 4 years old and do fine, can't be forced to guarantee backwards compatibility to DOS times.



HOWEVER - it must be said, I'm building a RP server with a strong focus un atmosphere and immersion, not so much on hack&slay. In adventuring areas where players need to react fast, I'm sticking a bit more to the rules. They won't be plain for sure, but also not massively spammed with trees, instead being smaller and working a bit with optical tricks for a forest feeling (valleys always work good for that).

[Alupinu]

Just did an area with two trees and three bush for a total of five trees. Used a 15 in the tree randomnizer, FR is fine, no problems here. 

BTW my area was 8X12.

Modifié par Alupinu, 04 décembre 2010 - 01:30 .

[NWN DM]

Bonzoli wrote...

Use the tree cutter plugin. Select a few dozen trees the randomize and group. You' ll see quite a change with just a few tree types.

Can someone link to a tree cutter plug-in that will work en masse with the 1.23 version of the game?

[Alupinu]

@NWN DM, I think this post might have what your looking for.

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/165/index/5244003

[kamalpoe]

NWN DM wrote...

Bonzoli wrote...

Use the tree cutter plugin. Select a few dozen trees the randomize and group. You' ll see quite a change with just a few tree types.

Can someone link to a tree cutter plug-in that will work en masse with the 1.23 version of the game?

Here:
Ladydesire's Plugin Pack
http://nwvault.ign.c...ns.Detail&id=72
which contains 1.23 compliant Replug, which is here:
http://nwvault.ign.c...ns.Detail&id=47
Which contained an update of the original Tree Cutter, which is here:
http://nwvault.ign.c...ns.Detail&id=13
Which is apparently getting an update.

[rjshae]

MokahTGS wrote...

Shadows are the biggest issue. Turn off all shadows except for trees that have thematic value. Trees, bushes, shrubs and plants are all "trees".

I'd imagine using the the Color terrain tool to apply a little subtle gray toning about the bases of the trees and shrubs would probably help compensate for the lack of shadows. Might have to experiment with that...

[PJ156]

rjshae wrote...

I'd imagine using the the Color terrain tool to apply a little subtle gray toning about the bases of the trees and shrubs would probably help compensate for the lack of shadows. Might have to experiment with that...

That's what I do but I find warm browns work best. I use a 2 inner X outer brush with brown at 10%, where X extends the brush to the out limit of the tree or bush. I then use a very slight colour over the whole area to soften the effectotherwise you have all your tree with coloured rings round the base.

PJ