Following one man's task of building a virtual world from the comfort of his pajamas. Discusses Procedural Terrain, Vegetation and Architecture generation. Also OpenCL, Voxels and Computer Graphics in general.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Under the trees
Here are more foliage screenshots from Sputnik. It is the rest of the series I did over the weekend. As you can see the blobs are entirely removed, but they are still used to create the leaves and collect illumination.
If I had enough time I will try to add a robust atmospheric illumination. God rays are a particular case when the sun is on screen, but in reality you can see the "air" even if the sun is not in front of you. I'm thinking about clouds right now, I would like to devise a solution that will produce the sky but also fog and other atmospheric effects.
I heard him talk about procedural leaves in the previous blog. This might mean that he can also make palm leaves etc. And if not, I bet it wouldnt be too hard to implement it (Palm trees are not the most difficult of plants to make, BECAUSE they have such big leaves XD)
The trees look really, really good. Do you have plans to do anything to alter their bark? It seems like a waste of your polygon budget unless you're close to the tree, but it might be worth investigating.
I'd provide this as an example: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Pine_bark.jpg
The thing about small details such as those is, you can easily get away with good quality textures, and maybe a bit of bumpiness. but in general, textures are really quite good at giving the illusion of depth, if done right.
Also, if you look at your example, and look at the edges where the tree meets the background, you can see that it is pretty smooth, compared to how smooth it actually is, hence the illusion wouldnt be lost on the edges either.
As Kamica said, I hope I can get away with good texturing (or maybe even tesellation) for the bark and not add unique geometry for it. It could kill the streaming rates.
Hi MCeperog, following you for a while know and I am very impressed of how you get this done (besides your normal job I guess). I really like the idea of procedural trees and houses (... and cities and worlds), but what about animated trees, some wind or storm? Do you plan to add this or do you focus on static content?
Thanks. I'm actually progressing very slowly, I put one or two hours every night (the pajamas in the blog's tagline are real). It helps me fall asleep.
I will have wind for sure. How strong, not sure about it yet.
Amazing...
ReplyDeleteMost excellent, really looking forward to seeing this in action.
ReplyDeleteWow, I just get more and more excited every time you post. Really great job with these, please keep it up!!
ReplyDeleteEvery screenshot you post makes the wait for access to these tools more unbearable. Simply amazing.
ReplyDeleteThat starts to look like a real forest =D. And since it is not yet finished, I can only try to imagine how the end-result will look like =D.
ReplyDeleteGet god rays in there! :P
ReplyDeleteHopefully by the time I'm done with this project that fad will be long gone. God rays are the new lens-flare.
DeleteTrue, but at least they are a real atmospheric phenomenon rather than the artifact of an image capturing device...
DeleteIf I had enough time I will try to add a robust atmospheric illumination. God rays are a particular case when the sun is on screen, but in reality you can see the "air" even if the sun is not in front of you. I'm thinking about clouds right now, I would like to devise a solution that will produce the sky but also fog and other atmospheric effects.
DeleteI presume you are going for the realistic looks, rather than the eye-candy ones?
ReplyDeletecould you show example of more fancy trees? :)
ReplyDeleteand btw yours trees can only use standard leafs? Do you can made palm in yours system?
I heard him talk about procedural leaves in the previous blog. This might mean that he can also make palm leaves etc. And if not, I bet it wouldnt be too hard to implement it (Palm trees are not the most difficult of plants to make, BECAUSE they have such big leaves XD)
ReplyDeleteThe trees look really, really good. Do you have plans to do anything to alter their bark? It seems like a waste of your polygon budget unless you're close to the tree, but it might be worth investigating.
ReplyDeleteI'd provide this as an example:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Pine_bark.jpg
The thing about small details such as those is, you can easily get away with good quality textures, and maybe a bit of bumpiness. but in general, textures are really quite good at giving the illusion of depth, if done right.
DeleteAlso, if you look at your example, and look at the edges where the tree meets the background, you can see that it is pretty smooth, compared to how smooth it actually is, hence the illusion wouldnt be lost on the edges either.
As Kamica said, I hope I can get away with good texturing (or maybe even tesellation) for the bark and not add unique geometry for it. It could kill the streaming rates.
DeleteHi MCeperog, following you for a while know and I am very impressed of how you get this done (besides your normal job I guess). I really like the idea of procedural trees and houses (... and cities and worlds), but what about animated trees, some wind or storm? Do you plan to add this or do you focus on static content?
ReplyDeleteAgain, congrats! Hope to see more.
Thanks. I'm actually progressing very slowly, I put one or two hours every night (the pajamas in the blog's tagline are real). It helps me fall asleep.
DeleteI will have wind for sure. How strong, not sure about it yet.
MCeperoG when will be next post? I ask because I saw your new video on YouTube, and its look great :)
ReplyDelete