VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
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VMblast
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VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by VMblast »

I opened this topic after having chat with Gavin (Intercarma) and he suggested to post it here. Ive took few days to think about it is it worth to talk about this. This topic would mostly consider coders, ofc if there is some out there (in this forum) moderate programmer as it is somewhat of a challenge. I will try to elaborate my [Idea] as it is a bit complicated to understand without showing fully.

The idea is how to build and have real sense of wast forests, but without using today standard technique of (tree) sprites springing them in the distance.

Ill try to elaborate - when you want (in game) to represent forest, dense forest areas ofc you have different LOD levels, but for the last element of which you build your image of dense forested area (in the distance), you use sprite right. However this is really CPU taxing and the results are always have been mixed at best. There was no way you could show wast forests on the terrain in full compact way -it always looked like its sparsely populated (sprinkled), like there are just a few trees here and there and not compact.

My idea was to use mesh (voxel) technique (as a separate element from the terrain but it lays on the terrain itself), as that last LOD element. So, instead of 100k of sprites in the distance, you have that jagged mesh (resolution could wary). Also other good point is that because it lays on the terrain, that parts of the terrain mesh dont need to be poly-heavy as they will not be seen. Ofc, in front of that "background" forest mesh, you can have few tree sprites as an LOD2...and so on to LOD0.

Here is the rough example.
Note -Ive zoomed camera way in, but in my concept this would be in far distance from the camera.
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OTHER PART OF THE TOPIC

This is considering complete world map renewal. As Unity itself support streaming it would be possible to rebuild entire world map using tiling technique.

I've made this example in the World Machine editor:
Image


I know, it looks like there are loads of tiles in there and you would be right -1024 to be exact. However this actually covers the real area of the entire Daggerfall terrain map and thats >>>400x400Km<<< (or 160,000km2), with the resolution of just 3m per PIXEL! Which is great.

I know this looks a lot, but its just an example, resolution could be increased (6-9m/pixel instead of 3m/p) and you can have other form of optimizations.
Last edited by VMblast on Sun Sep 03, 2017 6:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

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AlexanderSig
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Re: VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by AlexanderSig »

This would be awesome. Could we use SpeedTree for this? It already has Unity integration.

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Interkarma
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Re: VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by Interkarma »

This doesn't add to the topic at all, but just pointing out my name is Gavin, not Dave. :)

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Hazelnut
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Re: VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by Hazelnut »

Interkarma wrote:This doesn't add to the topic at all, but just pointing out my name is Gavin, not Dave. :)
Of course it is, Dave.

:lol:
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

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VMblast
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Re: VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by VMblast »

Interkarma wrote:This doesn't add to the topic at all, but just pointing out my name is Gavin, not Dave. :)
Im so sorry man. :oops: :( .....Ive corrected my mistake. :?

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Interkarma
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Re: VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by Interkarma »

All good mate. :)

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VMblast
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Re: VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by VMblast »

Ok this is just my illustration of the idea that Ive presented above. As the voxel mesh can be used for representation of the vast and dense forests in the background, it can be also good for the representation of other things -like tall grass fields and snow/deep snow.

Ive done this just by simple sculpting mesh and placing it on top of terrain, but its just to give you an visual representation of idea and its potential, to increase atmosphere and feeling of real world.

Image
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VMblast
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Re: VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by VMblast »

Testing ground scene (SNOW)

Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1vHJ ... TFCbkhLaTQ

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Arl
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Re: VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by Arl »

Oh my...


This would be an amazing feature, and that snow mecanic has never been seen before (I think).
My Deviantart page, I have some Daggerfall stuff in there.

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NikitaTheTanner
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Re: VAST FORESTS & STREAMING TERRAIN

Post by NikitaTheTanner »

Yep! Winter time is one of the most beautiful features in Daggerfall, especially considering that the seasons actually change, unlike in later games. And such technology would be very handy! For both forests and snow piles alike...

Snow should also slow you down when you walk straight through it :) Maybe even travels and especially reckless travels during winter will actually take more time, as it's much harder to traverse the snow. But that's just my ideas for gameplay, they have nothing to do with voxel meshes :roll:

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