Foliage, Sectors, Portals and Framerate Improvement....

Hebes24 · Post by **Hebes24** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 4:42 pm

I have a Few question about the foliage editing mode in ZE.

1.) What is it?

2.) How does it work?

3.) Can you place trees with it? I'm doing a big Yavin map and I need ALOT of trees. Basically, the whole thing is a forest with a few clearings and a road.

Big_rich · Post by **Big_rich** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 5:39 pm

1) Foliage are the little shrubs, grass, bushes you find in maps.
2) You "paint" it in ZE, then use a .prp file in your world1 folder to define the "foliage".EX of prp file:

Code: Select all

	{
		File("end_prop_fern5.msh", 80);
		Frequency(50);
		Scale(1);
		Stiffness(0.0);
		CollisionSound("foliage_collision");
	 	ColorVariation(0.2);
		AIVisibilityFactor(0.7,1.0);
	}
	Mesh()
	{
		File("end_prop_fern5.msh", 150);
		Frequency(70);
		Scale(1);
		Stiffness(0.0);
		CollisionSound("foliage_collision");
	 	ColorVariation(0.2);
		AIVisibilityFactor(0.7,1.0);
	}
	Mesh()
	{
		GrassPatch("end_prop_grass.odf", 40);
		File("editor_grasspatch.msh", 80);
		Frequency(50);
		Scale(1);
		Stiffness(0.0);
	        CollisionSound("foliage_collision");
	        ColorVariation(0.2);
		AIVisibilityFactor(0.40,0.9);
	}
}

Layer(1)
{
	SpreadFactor(0.4);
 	Mesh()
	{
		File("end_prop_fern5.msh", 30);
		Frequency(20);
		Scale(1);
		Stiffness(0.0);
		CollisionSound("foliage_collision");
	        ColorVariation(0.2);
		AIVisibilityFactor(0.7,1.0);
	}

 	Mesh()
	{
		File("end_prop_treeclump_1.msh", 50);
		Frequency(50);
		Scale(1);
		Stiffness(0.0);
		CollisionSound("foliage_collision");
	        ColorVariation(0.2);
		AIVisibilityFactor(0.35,0.6);
	}
}

Layer(2)
{
	SpreadFactor(0.4);

 	Mesh()
	{
		File("end_prop_foliage5.msh", 100);
		Frequency(50);
		Scale(1);
		Stiffness(0.0);
		CollisionSound("foliage_collision");
	        ColorVariation(0.1);
		FadeDist(10.0);
		AIVisibilityFactor(0.2,0.4);
	}
 	Mesh()
	{
		File("end_prop_foliage6.msh", 100);
		Frequency(50);
		Scale(1);
		Stiffness(0.5);
		CollisionSound("foliage_collision");
	        ColorVariation(0.1);
		FadeDist(10.0);
		AIVisibilityFactor(0.1,0.2);
	}
 	Mesh()
	{
		File("end_prop_foliage7.msh", 140);
		Frequency(50);
		Scale(1);
		Stiffness(0.5);
		CollisionSound("foliage_collision");
	        ColorVariation(0.1);
		FadeDist(10.0);
		AIVisibilityFactor(0.1,0.2);
	}
}

TreeLine()
{
	Path("jungle1")
	{
		Distance(28);
		BorderOdf("end_prop_treebill.odf");
	}
}

3) Yes you can use it to place trees.Look in the above .prp file taken from endor, experment with it for placing those trees.

The layers noted in the above code define which "brush" or layer you are using in ZE. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Hebes24 · Post by **Hebes24** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 6:29 pm

Thanks Big_Rich! Though, where do you put the mshs, and odfs? in data_***\worlds\***\msh(or odf)?

Post by **EraOfDesann** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 6:33 pm

You put the odf's and msh's in their corresponding folders of your world. So yeah, data_ABC/worlds/ABC/(msh or odf).

Hebes24 · Post by **Hebes24** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 6:40 pm

Thanks! I have foliage now!! Now I just have to get some tree mshs in that prp file....

Hebes24 · Post by **Hebes24** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 7:11 pm

New Question about foliage:

How do you make foliage have collision Geometry? I have it working with trees now, but you can go right through them! (LOL!)

Sorry about the double post.

Post by **Penguin** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 7:15 pm

place them in ZE manually

Big_rich · Post by **Big_rich** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 8:12 pm

Yep as penguin says anything located in the prp section is gonna have no collision. Cause it is usually used for grasses, brushes and such. I really don't know of any msh option to force collision.

Hebes24 · Post by **Hebes24** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 8:26 am

Aw man! That means I'll have about 6.022*10^23 trees that I'll have to place manually! My mouse finger hurts just thinking about it! Oh well....

Alright I put in a bunch of trees (filled about 1/3 of the map the way I want it) but now, whe I look at the forest, my Framerate is at 0.82!! (holy [diet dr. pepper]!) is there any way to have a forest and be able to actually look at it?

Post by **Penguin** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:06 am

go back to having foliage with no collison, it runs slow in ZE becouse everythign shirez, not low rez and it doesnt render the collison, ingame it will run slower becouse it has hirez and lowrez calculating and collison and manging all the normal map stuff ((units, animation, etc))

but with foliage it doesn't do the colision and lowrez stuff, etc etc etc. lol

Rekubot · Post by **Rekubot** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 11:23 am

It's just because of all the animated leaves. Your best bet is to take 'em all off with the ODF file, LoL. Otherwise, you've gotta live with the lag.

-(DW)-Big_Rich · Post by **-(DW)-Big_Rich** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:27 pm

Or maybe try using sectors, and adjust your farsceen/nearsceen range. You can do it, it's just gonna take allot of messing around with differant numbers to try to get a mix of distant fog and visual appeal. This is how felucia's level designers does it. I would suggest checking out feluica's sky file and maybe check it's sectors and portals. Maybe it can give you some hints on how to create the visual effect your looking for.

Hebes24 · Post by **Hebes24** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:50 pm

I don't know how to use sectors and portals, and I only have a vague idea about what they are. I frankly Hate the amount of fog Felucia and I still get lag there, so I don't like the fog Idea. I also think that nearscene and farscene ranges should not be played with, because I have som tall hills whare you can see the whole map, and I need certain objects to be visible from those heights (greattemples), so if I play with that, it won't look good.

Rekubot wrote: Otherwise, you've gotta live with the lag.

Do you know how bad 0.82 FPS is? Your unit moves like, every 3 seconds. But it's only if you look at the forest.

This is what my map looks like now:

Basically, the real trees are where you should be on the map (on the paths to the CPs, etc), then it goes to the foliage trees where you technically shouldn't be, then at the edges it fades to no trees. this is better, but the framerate is still about 2-5 FPS when looking at a large section of trees. (ugh!)

Would sectors/portals improve the framerate? How do I set them up in ZE?

xwingguy · Post by **xwingguy** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:44 pm

sectors and portals....READ THE BF2 PORTALSYSTEM DOC! Also look at the shipped maps, especially tantiveIV

Also visit this post to make the portals & sectors work:
http://www.gametoast.com/index.php?name ... 717#103717

btw sectors & portals may not work for folage but hey, felucia used em

Hebes24 · Post by **Hebes24** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 7:25 pm

WOW!! How did I not see that doc! Man! *smacks himself*

t551 · Post by **t551** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 7:43 pm

Also, did you really place 1 mol of trees in your map? At 5 tons a tree, that gives a molar mass of... I've taken too much chemistry.

Big_rich · Post by **Big_rich** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:09 pm

psych0fred wrote: Setting up collision and odfs/mshs helps (most people think if it works it works). Make sure your objects are small and have collision set up (vs having the engine use the visible geometry for collision). The larger the object the more time it takes to check a unit or vehicle's collision against it.

You have an example of this? I'm not to clear on what you mean.

Hebes24 · Post by **Hebes24** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:38 am

Yeah, I don't know what you mean either.

I've decided to scratch my forest idea, and only put trees in some places where it's really neccissary. And, since it's called "Yavin IV: Foothills" I could say that the whole map is very high altitude and close to the treeline, so there isn't that many trees anyway.

Foliage, Sectors, Portals and Framerate Improvement....

Foliage, Sectors, Portals and Framerate Improvement....

RE: Foliage....

RE: Foliage....