Foilage is indestructable!

[dedalos]

Originally posted by ALF
There is just no way to code destructable vegitation considering the massive ground area, it would be impossible to do this with current computer tech....call back in 10 years.  

Here is another one, lol.  Why do you say that?  Not only it is possible, it is not even hard to do.  I can understand not being important since they have other things they are working on, but impossible?  Thats just funny.

[Chilli]

Although I sometimes wonder what COAD stands for, I still occasionally put on the ole thinkin cap,  "Correcting Obsolete Applications Daily."

I have to agree that saying something is impossible,  over simplifies the task at hand.  What used to take 10 years to accomplish in development now takes about 10 days of serious commitment (go figure).  

Where HTC decides to place their priorities, must be a delicate balancing act.  In terms of innovation, they have nothing more to prove to me personally.  I am confident that one by one the "squeaky wheels" will be quieted.


Just close your eyes and invision the battlefield explosion, resulting in the smoldering crater, littered with  charcoaled branches that just previously was your well disguised cover.   No, not every blade of grass needs to be independently destructible, but a blast of certain stregnth could possibly effect terain changes.

Is this effect worth the amount of resources  Then the all important question, "What is the most efficient use of code?"

I am just grateful that others are on the same page.  That means that eventually it WILL happen.

 

[Easyscor]

Let's see, one tree about every 100 feet is 528 along an east west line x 528 trees along the north south line equals 278,784 trees per square mile and 512 x 512 terrain equals 262,144 square miles gives 73,081,550,000 objects to track as alive or dead.  Add bushes...

[Chilli]

One fly lands on a smelly pile and mates with another fly.  Now lets see that fly laid 56 eggs that all hatched and those 56 maggots sooner or later got it on to produce 1568 other maggots and in no time you wouldn't be able to see the pile for the maggots.

Don't bother me with the details.  Git R Done:cool:

Not to sound negative, we need a more positive approach.  Like maybe every dead area remains dead until reset and in the long run the battlefield is stripped of vegetation and no terrain to track at all.  

Not every area needs to be covered.  If you want to start streamlining, just include the area near spawn points and bases.  If you wish include a reasonable trail that tracks from spawn to base.  

I am sure that programs use similar strategies to streamline elsewhere.  We need ways to do it man not reasons to sit on our hands.

[dedalos]

Originally posted by Easyscor
Let's see, one tree about every 100 feet is 528 along an east west line x 528 trees along the north south line equals 278,784 trees per square mile and 512 x 512 terrain equals 262,144 square miles gives 73,081,550,000 objects to track as alive or dead.  Add bushes...

If you are a programmer, do your company a favor and quit your job.   You don't trak anything.  You just transmit changes.

Arguing this is pointless.  Nothing is impossible.  Its a question of do they have the time and how importand it is.

[Easyscor]

[Chilli]

Wait!

Don't quit yet!  Some of my best thinking has been provoked by those that have a different point of view other than my own.  Everyone's opinion is valuable and I have noticed that the more banter involved in a real discussion, the quicker solutions are developed.

don't trak anything. You just transmit changes

For the sake of arguement, we forget about  the limitation dependent on the number of objects, okay.   Is there something else that we are missing that makes this idea of "destructible foilage" ridiculous?

My final comment:cool:   In such a great WWII, Flight and Fight Simulation, I just have an overwhelming desire to destroy objects:  boats, planes, trucks, tanks, buildings, sheep, and if not asking too much a dang tree or at least that darn Johnny Appleseed  buggar that is to blame for it all:D

P.S.  Easycor's avatar is making my avatar horny

[Easyscor]

Originally posted by Chilli
P.S.  Easycor's avatar is making my avatar horny

LOL, it's the nose art on my B17 skin so you'll be distracted while I shoot you.

I've played with the terrain editor a little and learned enough to know we have a limited number of objects we can place.  I can't remember the maximum object count on a terrain at the moment but it's less then a quarter million IIRC so placing objects on the scale suggested above is out of the question.

It's not just destructible trees I want to place, there's also bushes and farm buildings as well as stuff we haven't even thought of yet.  There's no real stopping point once you get started and I like the idea of coming up with things that will improve things within the framework we have now, not in 10 years.

On several AH1 maps in the past, Guadalcanal and Okinawa for two, we had small numbers of destructible trees scattered around the bases where the count could be kept reasonable.  It was nice, but in AH2 we have many people complaining about frame rates so additional objects on the scale suggested above will upset those people no end.  I say this because currently, the trees are made using large textures which are visually pleasing and allow you to pass through except where the trees show.  To allow you to destroy one of these tree, you'd have to destroy an entire row up to a quarter mile long and this would be unacceptable IMO.

I've thought about placing grass tiles at the spawn points and setting trees/farm buildings etc there but that's a lot of hand work and I think it could break the map if not done perfectly (remember the spawn into the trees bug, that could become a common problem again) so clearly, filling whole terrain tiles by hand would never work.

An alternative that might work:

I've been thinking about experimenting with a grouped object of around 100 trees as a grove or hedge row, with a farm building or two, to be placed near the GV spawn points on maps for the SEA. That's still up to 51,200+ destructible objects for 512(?) spawn points and may not be worth it considering the size of the groves and how quickly they would be destroyed.  I haven't had time to do any more then think about it, but I'm going to try it on an ETO terrain I'm planning. Maybe someone else will get to it before I do.(hint)

Edit for spelling

[LivetoDie]

Would someone from Hitech PLEASE pipe in on what has become a technical issue. It has been established that a majority of the responses to this post favor modification of some degree to the armor clad foilage which is totally unrealistic.
It seems the discussion has leaned toward the programming ramafications involved and if it is indeed possible to accomplish this at this time. Understandably the AH team is busy with the TOD work and we do appreciate their efforts to provide even more already state of the art gaming fun. Thanks AH. Now how about a comment from the our Hitech experts, the only ones that really matter in this issue.

[Clifra Jones]

quote:
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Originally posted by ALF
There is just no way to code destructable vegitation considering the massive ground area, it would be impossible to do this with current computer tech....call back in 10 years.
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Originally posted by dedalos
Here is another one, lol.  Why do you say that?  Not only it is possible, it is not even hard to do.  I can understand not being important since they have other things they are working on, but impossible?  Thats just funny.

Current bump mapping technology (I think that's what they call it) could do this kind of thing. Some FPS games have the ability to blow out walls and blow craters in the ground/floors and such. So, I see no reason why killing a tree would be that hard to do BUT implementing this in a hi quality flight simulator would most likely kill all of our frame rates except those running the absolute highest powered systems. I doubt whether the community would want to trade frame rates for penetrable foliage.

[dedalos]

Originally posted by Clifra Jones
quote:
implementing this in a hi quality flight simulator would most likely kill all of our frame rates except those running the absolute highest powered systems.  

Why?  Just asking.

[ALF]

Originally posted by dedalos
Why?  Just asking.

The sheer number of objects is huge.  The average sector likely (I havnt counted) has several hundred thousand tree/shrub objetcs....That a tad high on the overhead side.  Thats why I favor an 'inbetween' level of penatrability.

We have 100% penatrable....bullets dont even know they exist stuff like grasses

We have 100% inpenatrable (everything else)

Why not have randomly penatrable or partially penatrable so that you cant fire an accurate arcing shot thru it because the shots trajectory will be significantly shortened by a randome amount, but you can still fire at a tank on the other side of a bush, and have some chance of  a good bomb strike thru a light tree canopy.

[detch01]

Originally posted by dedalos
Why?  Just asking.

Any destroyable object must have a "dead" version of the object or it disappears altogether from a terrain when it's destroyed or damaged.
Terrain tile objects currently also have LOD objects that would need a 'dead' version. That's a whole bunch more objects that need to have textures cached.
The base size for textures is 512x512 which is 258kb in size (give or take). If for example, you've got 20 default terrain clutter objects, each with 4 levels of LOD. That's 80, 258kb files or roughly 20-ish Mb you need to have on hand somewhere in the cache for the video card to grab and draw when the need arises.
Also, HTC would need to change the draw properties for terrain clutter objects in the code, and plug it in to AH's changed-state routine(s) for the list of things the game has to keep track of during game-play.
Done right, I don't see this being a problem for medium-high or high end systems but the low end systems could get hit hard.

My SWAG.

cheers,
asw

[Easyscor]

Originally posted by Clifra Jones
Some FPS games have the ability to blow out walls and blow craters in the ground/floors and such. So, I see no reason why killing a tree would be that hard to do...

You have that now with somewhat comparable numbers of base and strat objects.


asw I was hoping to build the distant LODs out of 128x128 textures and only use two or three variations of trees rotated to look different and grouped with field ownership.  You have more experience then almost anybody I know, what do you think, can I make it work well?

[detch01]

Hiya's Easy,
  You should be able to use a 128x  texture for long distance LOD without any trouble - details count only when you get up close. There are quite a few texture files for default AH objects that are 256x and they work fine, even up fairly close, so...
:Drevising my previous post - using 256x textures, that's a cache requirement for ~5Mb - definitely doable if HTC sees value in it, but still an extra draw on system resources for low end machines.


Cheers,

asw