2551 replies to this topic

[TimBoch]

This sounds like a movie. K11 "Attack on the clones"

[tastegw]

hah!  speed tree isnt easy to learn, thats for sure,  30 minutes in and this is rough.

 

[NoPutt]

Very nice work,that is if your course
is located in the land that time forgot.
Always wanted to play golf in Jurrasic Park.

[Kablammo11]

Nice work, Taste! Everything about it is pointing in the right direction: Tree models with attitude that dare to be in everybody's face. Strategically, if great trees can be conjured up and included, this will set PG/CF apart even more from others. Compared to the sad clown trees we usually get, this truly is a breath of fresh air.

But problems don't stop with trees. This is my Number 1 Acacia. I like a lot about this three: The shape, the colours, the exotic factor. Give me half a chance and I will use it in my project. Alas...

 

 

...the side of the tree not hit by direct sunlight is much too dark. This is a Speedtree phenomenon, because the ambient occlusion, the self shadowing of the tree, is baked into a lightmap in the modeller. Watch this: I turned the shadows in Unity to zero and that was the result:

 

 

Black leaves made by Speedtree. Surely that problem should not be too hard to solve? Well: Good luck. It is. I went to the following and many more pages, enjoy these samples and learn what course designer have to go through around here:

 

Original Documentation 1

Original Documentation 2

 

And even though everything seems to clearly described, it does not work as intended when exporting a .spm from ST into Unity. Seen from a more distant LOD range, the same tree looks horrific, with a green and black cloud of foliage.

 

 

Please join the "SpeedStinks" campaign and donate generously to the worthy cause of allocating 10 vigorous nose punches a day to each and every software engineer on this planet. These poor souls desperately and urgently need our violent solidarity and a steady, daily allowance of brutally tough love.

[NoPutt]

Sorry to hear of your tree blight, at least

the kitten population is diminishing.

[Kablammo11]

We do not refer to it as "population", but as "infestation". What with no kittens at all left within 480 miles, the Lodge even had to open a couple of kitten nurseries with attached kitten ranches nearby. Good luck herding these pests!

We will recoup this extra investment though, and quite quickly, by the introduction of kitten-related gambling in our Porcupine Casino. 

 

I'm inches away of sending Speetree to hell and returning to the old-style models and their editor. But what with our new nurseries and their 24 new local jobs depending on them, kittenomics might force me to delay this long-deserved step a bit longer. Quite ironic.

[shimonko]

Send me a link  to your spm and I'll have a look tomorrow if you like.

[Kablammo11]

I tried to PM you, mate:  

Thanks for offering your help

 

The following errors were found

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so here's the link, I don't care who downloads it, too. It's a folder with the spm and all the mats in it.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bi2puuh7f3aasss/Acacia1.zip?dl=0

[shimonko]

Message box was full - sorry, emptied now.
Having a look at the SpeedTree Unity implementation, they are using the leaf and branch planes to both block the main directional light (sun) and compute the ambient occlusion solution (working out where ambient light simply can't get to). This makes the shadowing excessive compared to lots of little individual leaves doing the blocking.
Also in real life leaves are transmissive, letting some light through them. Noting that SpeedTree Unity supports transmissive (and specular maps), I had a look at one of PP's SpeedTrees and indeed saw it had them. I however noted Unity's SpeedTree's shaders weren't referencing these maps and upon a Google, confirmed they are not yet supported.

This pic below shows your tree straight in Mike's test course in the editor:



Changing the ratio of ambient lighting to sun light in the editor of course lightened your dark regions, but ground shadows are way too light for the levels of daylight being suggested:




Again just extreming, minimising the ambient occlusion in your tree in SpeedTree, with the same lighting as pic directly above:



IMO, it looks worse than the second image.

But when we go to the game itself which seems to have quite a reasonable sun/ambient balance, your tree with ambient occlusion minimised looks like this:



The darkening is not necessarily too dark, it's just too concentrated and continuous because of how SpeedTree treats leaves in clumps rather than individually. It's the same in PG's SpeedTrees so there's only so much you can do.

[shimonko]

Just another thing, I thought I check out Unity Tree Creator trees while I was at it - the big tree on the left in the last three images is a Unity Tree Creator tree - no sparkles in editor or in game. Possibly a bug in Unity that has been fixed if they existed before.

[Kablammo11]

Thanks a lot for your work, shimonko. Very impressive research and I'll make sure you will never have to pay green fees at the Lodge. 

But I understood barely half of your explanations (which clearly must be a cause for most issues of this nature) and I am a bit at a loss about what to do differently in my workflow now.

Create transmissive maps to my foliage?

Do nothing and trust game graphics?

Slaughter a couple hundred kittens and then forget about it?

[shimonko]

So in summary:

1. Don't bother creating a transmissive map even though it might seem attractive for this issue. Although the Unity SpeedTree modeler supports them, the actual Engine isn't using them nor is our version of CF so it's likely the game isn't either. Mike will know for sure about the game.

2. If the bottom image is better than what you've been seeing in game, minimise the ambient occlusion on your leaves. To do so, Cmd-Click select all your leaf nodes in your tree tree, then under the Lighting tab set Dimming to 0 and increase offset.

3. If your screenshots are in the editor, increase your ambient lighting (making it white color if needed, it's in Lighting in the Window menu) and drop your directional light intensity.

I'll send you my modified version of your tree.

[Kablammo11]

I tried. Not happy!

Oasis Lodge suspended until that tree situation is somehow resolved. Not by me, I tried and done my bit.

 

So now what? Let's review our babies: Final touches on Willow are unCFable due to adverse circumstances. The Swan needs pot bunkers which maliciously keep not being available. Pommeroy is undergoing beta-testing and is more or less ready for release. And the Lodge is vegetatively too utopian to progress any further.

 

Two options only: I will either stare idly at my mirror image and despair - or dream up a new baby to coddle and watch grow. Guess which?

 

Introducing: "Karen"

 

 

A links course. We have too many parkland and forest courses out right now, and even more of these on the way, so let's rally to the banner of these coastal gems and bring a few more of them to life. No trees! What a fabulous prospect. Unlike the Swan, Karen will be soft, kind and generous.

 

 

A gentle course, mostly flat(-tish), right on the sea side, perhaps even with a few tidal pools reaching a bit further inland. And where, at the Black Swan, there were steep cliffs and towering rocks, Karen's shoreline will be friendly. The image does not show it yet, but there will be beaches reaching out from the land, pebbly and sandy strips of relaxing thalassotherapy.

 

 

Par 70, only two par 5's, large greens (on average 35 by 25y), wide fairways (at least for those who play the percentages) - Karen will of course maul you, rip out your guts and lacerate you savagely, the same as I do to evil kittens, if you should get too greedy or play too poorly, but it will do so ever so gently. You might even enjoy the punishment.

 

Oh, and why Karen? Those who follow this thread will already know. This Karen:

 

 

A small memento to the lost, angelic voice. But also a design principle of this project, btw: I want the experience of playing Karen to be identical with listening to her songs. 

[bortimus]

Entertaining as always.

Hope we get those firm settings soon so we can really bring those links courses to life!

[NoPutt]

Those shots remind me of "On top of the World",

of course you've " Only just Begun", and so far

it's just white lace and promises. It's raining here and ,

"Rainy Days and Mondays" always bring me down.

If you do ever get those Pot Bunkers, you'll be a "Superstar".

[JoeF]

btw: I want the experience of playing Karen to be identical with listening to her songs. 

 

Oh, please, no!  Bland and boring is not what I want to experience on the golf course!  

How about toughening it up - while making it look deceptively simple - and then plant 4 gnarled and windswept trees somewhere on the course and calling it "Four Sticks".

 

[Kablammo11]

I might yet make a course like Rammstein. This won't be it. Open your heart and soul to the soothing stupor of the bland and boring.

You should be well used to it by now, playing places like Sawgrass, Boston or Medinah. Even at my worst, and my worst is quite good, I never could lower myself down to the stultifying depths of apathy these courses evoke in me.

[M Rose]

Maybe we should give people's names to more courses.

"Our next course will be called Bob."

[Kablammo11]

That's a cool name for a course, Matt. "Let's do Bob tomorrow...".

Double points if this was a Blackadder 2 reference. 

[mcthommo]

Luck, get it.. sounds almost exactly the same as fu....