Better Grass!

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               So, I was playing Dragon Age: Origins the other day, marveling at the graphical performance of my new PC while at the same time crying over the fact that game is not Neverwinter Nights (Sigh... been looking for a worthy succesor, to no avail...), and I noticed something that has been bugging me for quite some time.

You see, good modulers and custom-content-creators, I've tweaked the FarRenderingGrass and the .SET options to get lots and lots of wonderful blades of grass, but I've found not only does it present a huge problem to performance, but it is also un-practical in gameplay terms.

If you augment the FarRenderingGrass to, say... 6000 or 5000, framerate drops dramatically. Similarly, if you change Density and Height to say... 7900 and 1000 respectively, (which, I think, are the highest possible values in the original tilesets), The grass shows its glitchy features, like getting a somewhat transparent exterior line, which doesn't cover objects moving through the blades, or the "tab-glow" being completely covered by the grass on objects lying around.

Anyway, while in the Korcari Wilds (Hope I spelled it right... since it reminds me too much of the KeroKero Kolas in Mario RPG...) of DAO (Is it me, or is DA a mixture of NWN-like gameplay, Fable-like graphics, and The Witcher-like storyline?) I realized NWN2, KOTOR, TSL,  DAO, ME and The Witcher don't have over-abundant vegetation, they all work with NWN's mix of texture and little dynamic grass. I'm guessing it is because such combo is light on resources.

The thing is, however, all of those games have better graphics than olde NWN, so I come here in order to ask for assistance (Really... when have I not?). I liked the DLA TNO tileset's mix of grass texture and short, sparse, Dynamic Grass, and I went for something similar in my own, personal tweaks for TTR, but I think I overdid it, I went too far with the dynamic grass. So, I'm hoping you guys may share your views and configs. I mean the original Rural Tileset doesn't have the same graphic variety that TNO has, so I'm finding it a little hard to get the right look. Six_Six_Six has something similar to DLA's approach going on in his own tielsets (several layers of textures in "degraded" or "escalated" positions, like say... grass-dirt-rock, or little details created solely by texture, like leaves over the water, etc.), and I'm trying to get such look in order to diminish the Dynamic Grass feature without turning my tilesets into a simple, greenish carpet with no variety whatsoever.

I use Toro's Rural grass, if a bit modified in color to better fit with the 1.69 look, and most of the TNO textures for TTR, so you have an idea of what I aim for.

Feel free to voice your opinions on textures/dynamic grass options! And if you want to show off with screenies, that would be so much better! '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Jedijax, 23 février 2011 - 06:48 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               OK!... I'm starting to get the feeling you guys are giving me the cold shoulder...
Did I say something wrong? I mean, did I insult anyone? Probably something to do with multi-cultural-translation-discrepancies, right?

If you think this is a good time for an intervention, I am ready! Go ahead, intervene me!

I am perfectly capable of discussing the matter in a rational manner, no tantrums or screams, no insults... come now, don't just leave me with no posts regarding dynamic grass and texture features... that would be so rude...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Jedijax, 18 février 2011 - 03:35 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               The NWN engine only allows one grass texture to be assigned to the real, growing grass, and one basically flat texture to be applied to the ground itself.  You can get around this to a certain extent by using animesh/auroraflex objects but you run a severe risk of crashing the system and totally lowering your frame rate to less than zero.  The Bioware Aurora Engine as used in/ created for NWN was created back when windows 95 was the going OS, and 98 was the new kid on the block.  So, it was designed around a MUCH lower ram count, think 256 MEG, not measured in the gig range that a 64bit OS can handle.  The other limits were the level of processing power that was available.  Sooo, the engine was designed to give highest frame rate it could give, within those constraints and still give the illusion of having a living grass system.



Anyway, Growing grass is controlled by the main engine, you CAN replace the texture used by the growing grass, but you are still limited in what can be accomplished.  I am not saying that it can't be improved upon, as TNO evidenced, but you still have the basic engine limits.



You have no real control on the algorithm that is used to calculate and place the "living" grass other than the face type set in the wok.  You can reduce it easily enough, by resizing those faces smaller, and interposing some other surface type.  But by doing that, you actually eliminate the living grass bits altogether... IE, if the faces are too small, say divided by faces of dirt, you get NO grass at all.  I don't know how large the minim size is to actually get growing grass, but there is a minimum there.  The algorithm appears to measure total space available for the growing grass, without any divisions, IE, it will basically count two faces side by side, as one and measure the total space used by both, onwards and upwards to full tile size.    



Anyway, basically, what I am saying is that there really is not much that CAN be accomplished with the current engine to enhance how the growing bits of grass look.  The texture applied can be changed, but you have to provide a really good replacement or you are just wasting your time.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Err... that's what this is all about. The point of the thread was for posters to share their own mixes of both flat model textures and dynamic grass textures, and their configurations on density, height and far rendering, all well within the engine's capabilities. I mean, I wasn't expecting technical breakthroughs, just a mix of elements that would give the rural areas a better look, much closer to today's standards, like DLA's in the 1.69 patch.

Thank you, nonetheless, Bannor!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Jedijax, 18 février 2011 - 07:09 .