Project Reality Forums

UPDATED

Hi guys,
Im just experimenting with BF2 editor and trying to create a realistic jungle enviroment, without drastically effecting the preformance.
Ive given it another go so the first bit is just the old photos on to see the difference.

OLD Attempt
1)In Overgrowth mode i created a new brush, which i then added lots of different bushes and plants to. I then also added trees to the same overgrowth brush.
2)I used this one single "Jungle" brush to paint a large area, i then tweaked with the idividual vegitations settings, making it more dense while keeping the spacing between the bushes and trees.
3)Ive tweaked with the settings of the density and have found that the trees tend to lag the editor from 30fps out in flat ground to about 15 fps when moving nearer to the jungle then leveling off back at 30fps, when stationary in the jungle.

Refrence Photo


Heres what i created...

Thick/Dense Foliage
My favorate



Medium FoliageOffers better preformance but less apnosphere.



Thin Foliage Personally i dont like it...



Now on to the canopy thickness.
This has been the most difficult part. Trying to get the trees to fill in the holes, without using too many trees.
Canopy Thick


Canopy Med


Latest Attempt

This is my latest attempt after starting over, completly.
Ive taken all of your tips and suggestions into account, (i think )

* Cut Back on the density
*Lowered view distance to 800, IIRC a heli sound bug happens if it is lower than 800.
* Not gone over the top with placing the jungle, using rice paddies to break it up.
*Not placing many vegetation set peices as static objects. (They draw at a further distance= less preformance.)
*You cant really see it in the following pictures, but i added color variations in the leafyfloor.
*Also added grassy patches in clearings throughout the jungle.
*Added standing hight bushes/undergrowth to kinda block vision when running.
*Ramdomised the terrain more hills and dips. Maybe might add some streams later.
*You cant see from the pics but i added ramdom rocks which make good cover and look like the should be there, smoothened by the terratial rainfall in Indochina.

Pics

Refined Without the undegrowth, it looks realy bare doesnt it...



Refined With the undergrowth, it looks more junglish now since it harder to see beyond 40 or so meters since its sp dense.



The main differences since my last attempt, is that i have cut back ALOT on the canopy thichness and the amount of trees, since the preformance was poor and because i couldnt quite get a complete canopy covering. All of this makes the preformance better, but at a price, there is no longer such a thick covering of trees. But i guess it isnt that bad since the combat is taking place on the ground, unless you are a monkey or spiderman.

The Bushes on the ground have been cut back aswell since too many of them makes it look to repetative and also decreases preformance.

Most importantly i have added a undergrowth layer under the overgrowth layer of bushes and trees. The undergrowth layer is a tricky one, here are some minor problems i am experencing.

*Undergrowth was designed for grass and small plants, im using it to make towering bushes, meaning the bushes look a bit stretched out. Does anyone think the undergrowth bushes look stupid and to low res/quality?
*The undergrowth keeps matching the color of the ground below it meaning its not the green i want it to be but the brown of the leafy floor. Does anyone know a way around this?


Thell me what you think, i dont care how harsh it sounds just say it,
I think constructive critisism is needed right now.
I might think something looks good, cuz i made it and im proud of my work.
But to other people it just may look like and extremley poor peice of map work.
Please dont just say:
"Looks good"
"Keep up the work, cant wait to play it"
etc.

If you PC wont be able to handle this kinda vegetation, ie. does it already lag on other maps.

What do you think the jungle is missing...ie. does it need logs rocks more small trees...

If you know of any way on getting better preformance with the vegetaion?

If you know how to make the jungle look better, let me know please.

Thanks i look forward to hearing you opinions soon.

hey, welcome to the forums. enjoy your stay

here is an interessting thread for you:
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f196-p ... fever.html

and well everybody loves dense overgrowth, but that is not all which affects the performance, there is also the viewdistance of the overgrowth as well as the generell performance of the map (not 100% sure on this ) and the number of obergrowth objects (even if there is not an engine limit, but if you have about 100,000 overgrowth objects than it will lag for a lot of people).

keep up, cheers Leusch

Having such a dense overgrowht everywhere acorss your map especially if its a bigger map would definitely not work out due to performance reason unless you drastically lower the viewdistance.
But having alot of areas without overgrowth , eg villages, fields etc would solve this issue in a way though it will still be performance heavy.

hmm that jungle fever thread is just what i was looking for, as many of the trees in PR at the moment are not suitable for tropical jungles. Thnaks
I gave him a PM to see if i can use those vegitation.

I was thinking of making the view distance 800 since it is a 2km map (Almost half of it is sea, kinda like muttrah) And having rice paddies (Placed as static objects) around the main areas of the map and jungle areas surrounding the river.
It is a helicopter map so preformance is No.2 on my list (second to quality), since heli pilots will have a large view area meaning their PCs will be trying to draw all the vegetation in view quickly.
Do you think undergrowth instead of overgrowth for the jungle floor would be a better idea?

Also i wouldnt mind some criticism since, it may look good in my eyes since i made it, but other people will be able to point out the faults.

Thanks

well having helis complicates it all a bit

BUT...

area prioritizing is what I was planning.. my initial test map for the jungle will be a series of steep valleys and peaks.. The peaks will be inaccesible for the most part allowing me to thin the overgrowth on top and screen the area with trees rather that having it chock full..

additionally. Im planning to place all the large canopy level trees by hand...then use the overgowth brush for mid and low level vegitation...the large trees becoming the "static objects" of the map...

My map doesnt really have hills or valleys, ??:, Its mostly ricepaddies, Sea, and some jungle. Mostly flat. maybe i should just move to a different type of map...

If you placed trees at static objects, doesnt that mean the static object trees will draw at a greater distance making the map more laggy. I remember that fields are placed as static objects since they do not dissapear at long distances.

if you can change the ground texture you're using for something alot more green, preferably the dirt with large amounts of fallen leaves, greens, browns, reds etc. Get it looking like a jungle floor as it looks a bit too clean. But otherwise looking good. I prefer the thick overgrowth personally

Some aesthetic suggestions:

(1) Try to remake this with the 'Jungle Fever' trees, and any other trees that fit the area. Obviously, you should avoid trees that don't belong in the environment (notice in the reference picture that more or less the trees are the same color; if you are using the Jungle Fever trees, then make sure you are using more trees with a light bark as opposed to the darker barked trees, but using the lighter default trees will add a little variety here and there, which isn't a bad thing).

(2) Definitely change the ground color. A forest's canopy blocks most of the sunlight, so the ground will be much more brown-colored, with beds of green-leaves covering portions of the forest floor. It doesn't have too be too dark, because when everything is said and done the parts being obscured by the canopy should be shadowed, whereas the parts in the open should become a lot lighter in comparison.

(3) There seems to be a VERY minor difference between the two canopies. If that is how it looks (assuming you didn't misplace a picture or something), then use medium if it gives a performance boost of any kind.

(4) Medium foliage, but perhaps tweaked. If you can find any, larger palm-plants would be great; the kind that obscure your vision past them even when standing. I'm not sure if there are any by default, but if ones could be made or found, that would be great. Also, make the 'baby tree' looking ones less frequent. Often, a forest won't have too many growing trees because of the already maxed-out soil use. A few here and there isn't a bad thing, but having too many seems a bit strange. Using a lot of the bush-sized undergrowth is a plus, as it will obscure some of the forest floor and give that kind of ambience.

TBH from just a quick look at the screenshots, there doesn't seem to be a huge difference between high, medium and low foliage thickness. I'm sure there's a large difference when walking around in the map, but overall I think you could get away with an unrealistically thin jungle that would still feel very cramped when you're actually playing and trying to spot enemies.

In any case, performance should come first, so I'd focus on the thin foliage to start with at least. Maybe do a play test with a bunch of people and bots online, see how it works on different hardware.

Adding bumps in the terrain using the random tool at power 1 and smoothing just a tad after will help the rainforest look less practicable, more like a real rainforest floor, and more lively than trees sticked to a flat floor of leaves.

Adding static trunks randomly and a few rockies there and there also gives your forest some life. But don't just randomly place rocks (don't use overgrowth ones, they're jagged), put them so it looks believable that they're there.

just my two cents here, I might be wrong

Tannhauser wrote:Adding bumps in the terrain using the random tool at power 1 and smoothing just a tad after will help the rainforest look less practicable, more like a real rainforest floor, and more lively than trees sticked to a flat floor of leaves.

+1

Uneven terrain in a forest is to be expected, and this seems like it would be a good thing to do before putting trees in to add some detail. Making it feel more like unsteady, cluttered terrain and blocking line of sight is really the objective in making a realistic forest in PR, imo.

Thanks guys for all the contribution, i am now on holiday in portugal so sorry i didnt reply for a day or two, and only managed to find internet here. I will continue experementing and take into account your suggestions, to make the jungle look better and more believable, aswell as making it preform well.
Thanks.

-First Post Updated-

Biggest thing IMO that needs fixed is the ground texture... the 'brown' you are using is more of a tan/orange than a brown. I took a picture from the update and changed the hue of it so that the ground texture would change colors to the proper look.

Because the ground texture you have is leafy, a solid color feels a little strange, though... what I suggest is instead making/finding a ground texture that consists of more dark dirt (only a bit darker than pic 1 below), and placing overtop of that a level of leaves, so that the leaves will be covering the dirt for the most part, but dirt will still stick through...

And also, you could make it so that while 1 is your main ground texture, you can have parts of the ground have 'green' to them so that your bushes show up properly. However, I prefer a lot of the growth you had in the 'old project' and the new project with the green-er bushes shown in the screenshots. I would stick to undergrowth that have thin leaves like the leaves on the far-right mid of the reference picture, or the 'round' leaves shown in the reference picture, near the front on the ground.

The best 'jungle plants' in-game IMO are:
(1) the large leafy bushes seen often on I think Qinling [big, leafy, round, medium green]
(2)Palm plants from the old test [the first screenshot for thin foliage, the dark plant in the front of the picture]
Palm plant seen in the new test [refined without overgrowth, first picture, on the right, it's light green and looks similar to the other one]
Other palm plant seen in the new test [refined without overgrowth, second picture, on the right near the bottom just above the leafy bush in the corner]
(I personally prefer the second and third the most, but if some of the first are thrown in sparingly to 'change it up', then it wouldn't be a bad thing. Just imo make the second and third plants more frequently seen since it seems to be of higher detail)
(3) Smaller bushes [like in the refined without bushes, second picture, the one near the center that is at the end of the log on the left]

I posted a reference picture below. Notice that the ground is mostly a brown with leaves, but parts of the soil are exposed and add to the brown color... near the bushes in the foreground, there are a few fresh green leaves that have been dropped. Perhaps you could make around the base of trees have parts of green to show some new leaves that have fallen atop of the ground, and around bushes you can do the same so that the bushes will be 'green'?

In regards to undergrowth, look at the reference picture below for examples... Obviously it's a little extreme to try to recreate that to the tee, but you can see that there are parts where the ground has piled up along the sides, making it act kind of like a walking path, and some of the plants are arcing over the path because of the ground raising in those areas.

To really create that jungle feel, I would suggest making a few flat roads like in the picture, where there is mounds of soil on each side, varying in height and frequency, making the players a little more 'claustrophobic' since it would block their view so much. In other parts of the jungle, the terrain could open up a little bit, where it's very 'flat' (still has many bumps in the ground and such, but there aren't large mounds of dirt or an abundance of undergrowth), and some places you could pile up the dirt (raise the terrain) in areas to make it so that it is relatively hard to see over, but can be climbed (like a small hill, within the forest).

Whole bunch of ideas for you to kind of push the immersion higher, hope some of them are feasible enough to use! If you need me to clarify anything I said, let me know, I'll try to do so as best I can. Good luck!

Pictures below (I don't have photoshop, but should tomorrow when I recieve my laptop, so I'll try to get a more accurate edit if I can to accurately match the reference picture's ground):
(1) Brown, Dead leaves, base of jungle
(2) Green, freshly dropped leaves for around bushes or trees
(3) Inbetween, just incase
(4) Reference picture

[R-COM]marcoelnk wrote:eg villages, fields etc would solve this issue in a way though it will still be performance heavy.

Maybe Fields surrounded by chopped down trees in piles?

Deforestation not so bad now eh?

EDIT:

Those textures look really good the second one is a bit to bright though.

The flat rolling hills really kills any sense of it looking like a real jungle.

Greatly improved since the first post!

I don't know how to solve the undergrowth color problem, but adding undergrowth grass will surely help the jungle feel more dense.

As for the canopy, it's fine as it is. The real use of very dense canopies is that they prevent aerial units (helos and UAVs) from spotting you, IMO.

One very nice thing about jungle environment is the possibilities for cover and for concealment. Natural ditches, tiny shallows serpenting trough the forest, few small but cudly caves (from foraging/hunting animals) that give loads of possibilities for placing rallies, fire positions, ammo caches, etc.

Keep going. I feel the ground is still a bit too dark, a bit paler/dry but not too much would be good as I think the shadows made by the jungle trees will make the ground look darker like right now. Then the color variation from the ground will lookd much better because of the shadows.
My two cents, don't even know if overgrowth can be lightmapped anyway.

oh god those bush LODs are a nightmare. Check out Rhino's very sexy new overgrowth tutorial. Def worth checking out