New models for map creation

[Franck83]

This post gives inspiring ideas.

I've no experience about map making (for now) and i'm so busy with my mod, but i found a lot of inspiring tree assets (with low poly counts) that can be used for making very cool forest maps.
All the map i tested got nearly all trees have the same height. I didn't see any huge trees (like in avatar movie)...

These are low poly trees (there are some blender lowering polycount scripts for higher count models)

















https://free3d.com/user/kim/models/4
https://free3d.com/user/kim/models/5
..

Today, 10 years after supcom FA release, we have access to huge amount of ressources to make fantasic work on supcom/map modding.

If we add a sim script to theses maps, we can add some aoe properties to some trees (healing trees, shield regen trees)...

[CookieNoob]

sure we can add these trees as new props (they can also be integrated in the original editor and most certainly in ozonex editor as well)

Scripts for these trees dont need to be in the map, the trees itself can also have unit scripts.

[Brutus5000]

Please don't forget to check for the license of the assets. "Personal use only" doesn't actually work out with us distributing them to every player.

[ZLO_RD]

Does not looks so low poly .
Both current trees and these fancy nice trees might be low poly, wonder how big is the difference.
Also trees look really nice!

[ozonex]

As technical artist I need to warn you, that you have to be careful about triangle count of tree props. Supcom is a game, where lot of trees need to be rendered, and they need to look good also from far away. In most of RTS games maps are much smaller and camera zoom out is limited to never show too many objects from too far.

After I finish map editor I want to play with new ways of achieving better graphic of the maps.

Look at Starcraft 2, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, Grey goo. Most of graphic on maps in done at edges of walkable area, such as clifs, rivers, corners and all other edges. Maybe we can do something similar in FA. Make some non reclaimable props that will be placed near cliffs and mountains. Thats need to be not only trees, but also rocks, buildings,

That's how Grey Goo makes feel of being in deep forest


Same with starcraft 2:



Even in Homeworld:


Also GPG tried to achive same effect in SupCom2 maps



Look how walkable area cuts out from borders. Its lighter and less detailed, where borders are dark and contrasted. SupCom1 has almost empty borders with reclaimable props at center of walkable areas. Maybe that's direction where we should experiment width.

Few months ago I was experimenting with props placing on Seton's Clutch

[Franck83]

All of this sounds good.

What is the advised average polycount for tree models ? (i can try to lower polycount with Blender scripts)

[ozonex]

What is the advised average polycount for tree models ? (i can try to lower polycount with Blender scripts)

Don't think you can lower it with automatic scripts. We need to experiment how modern PC handles so much trees, but it think most props should be less than 400 triangles per object at LOD0. Then you need to make LOD1 with ~30-50% of triangles of orginal mesh and LOD2 as billboard.

Having 500 trees visible at same moment with 400 triangles will give us 200 000 triangles.

We can also make some props with higher triangle count (500-1500) but they will need to be in small numbers on map. Something like really big tries, buildings, ancient ruins and wreckage.

[Franck83]

Yes, i understand that i need to take a deep look on this and experiment.

Maybe we can balance a little number of higher polycount models (for example just several huge trees on the map with scripts) and a big number of trees with very low polycounts.

Anyway, thanks for your editor, it will help this kind of work.

[Exotic_Retard]

as a ballpark estimate: 2.5 million polys on screen is way too much. it depends on the gpu, and its really hard to quantify because its not a simple linear fps drop but it can drop by 30 fps every so often (as the frames and sim sync) - i tested this by spawning 200 12k poly units and turned all ui things off like range circles which utterly destroy fps in comparison.

we dont want to have more than 1 million on screen, or not more than 2000 per prop if there are 500 of them visible (but remember there are other things on screen too not just your trees!)

but yeah, its a balance of polycount vs expected number on screen at a time - if you have a huge tree 100m tall for example you can have only 20 of them and then have 2k polys on them pretty comfortably, even more if needed.

by comparison: acus are around 6k polys, most units are 2k or under, interestingly lower tech units tend to be smaller so they can have shorter LODs but higher tech stuff is more expensive and so you see fewer on screen at a time. still, when tilting the camera you can see the cutoffs pretty clearly so its best to have a lower poly model with longer LODs

remember: low poly models made well is better than high poly made badly, and when you make the model from the ground up with such an approach, its always a better result than having to destroy geometry to get it down to the poly count.

[Franck83]

Ty Exo, this is very usefull information.

@ Ozonex : really love the grey goo dark forest !

I made a test using the decimate and smooth functions in blender to reduce polys.

I did not touch the models. Form original the joshua tree free model got 10500 polys. Reducing to 4700 polys have no visual impact. Reducing to 3150 polys need a little retouch of the trunc, but it can be fixed easily. I think we can do lower but it need retouching.

I do not have much time for mapping or model editing for now, but i see a lot of potential here for near 10k polys models. As Cookie said, trees can have their own script, so some visual effects can be added for intensive atmospheres (leaves falling, smoke fogs swamps, lights...).