250: Plant No Other Tree

[kingmob]

To be honest, I'm really surprised that speedtree seems to be the only big player in middleware procedural generation apart from the complete engines like unreal3.
Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I'd expect there to be great demand for generation of pretty much everything. Like landscapes, rock formations, roads, houses and especially people. of course that last one will be hard because of the uncanny valley, but it surely must be possible to parameterize a basic design? Oblivion seemed to have something like that, but they must've created it themselves. That surely took a lot of hours of coding and modeling.

In the end it would be really 'easy' to remake elite and generate the planets while you are in hyperspace out of several parameters. Storing the parameters and not the models themselves. ahh, the future...

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Hey, look.
Golf games did something good for the broader gaming industry.
Suprising.

I would take that one step further. Golf has done something good for something. Even more surprising!

Anyway I think the complexities of modern games make things like this necessary. The danger is that 3D games will start looking somewhat samey, but the advantage is that developers will (hopefully) stop having to concentrate on making use of the latest graphics technologies and start focussing on creating great characters, storylines and gameplay. Personally I'd go for substance over style every time.

 

[ThreeKneeNick]

The trees in Oblivion were so good that for months, maybe even for years after playing it, looking at real trees or walking in a real park would make me think of Oblivion, and make me want to play it

However, ever since Oblivion, forests made with SpeedTree look about the same. I cant expect two trees of a single species to look different, that's not what i'm saying, I'm saying that artists try to make imaginative settings with different character and object models, different environments and such, but to save time they put SpeedTree in the middle of all that and it does not fit. It looks like you ripped a forest from a different game and put it into yours, and its natural and realistic look clashes with your otherwise original fantasy or sci-fi design.

I don't blame them for doing it, and it's true that if you put a little effort into SpeedTree you can make it look original, like in the Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion, and i haven't even noticed that Dragon Age and Batman Arkham Asylum use SpeedTree. But you can also make great looking trees that sway in the wind without ST, take a look at Guild Wars pre-searing Ascalon, beautiful, natural looking trees that fit the setting perfectly...

 

[BehattedWanderer]

That is astounding. They found out how trees grow and how rocks form so that they can accurately model their environments. Absolutely phenomenal. Imagine if they grew over time as well, modifying themselves the more time you put into the game. Wait too long to go back to a little cave, and it's overgrown. I almost can't wait until we're at that point with our graphics hardware.

 

[Najos]

Ahh speedtree, it gives great results but it's so smegging expensive, I never get the budget to afford it given we do [mostly] non-game projects.

Not nearly as expensive as hiring someone to design trees and then place them, but I get your point. Then again, smalltime companies like Star Vault are using it. At least, they were about a year ago when I last checked up on Mortal Online.