Pacifica Beta Update -Video
by JR Wilde · 02/02/2013 (12:19 am) · 6 comments
Sorry for the delay in posting; hectic times. First off, Thank You for your feedback. There are a lot of little things I'm taking care of as well as naming/grouping things more intelligently and meaningfully. I had no idea the impact that levels of detail could have on performance. WOW! the irony is now that I have so much more headroom to play with what do I do? Add a gazillionmore polys! anyway,
Performance has gone up and the trees will be higher in polys by about 30 to 150 or so. I'm learning Blender on my own (nothing at all like I remember it to be). When I'm as comfortable with it as I am with Photoshop I'll be writing some targeted and, hopefully, useful instructionals -since finding useful information on any particular version can be frustrateing at times. Vertex painting is my current mission as I want all of the trees and some of the undergrowth to be wind generator capable.
As you can see in the video I'm going for a more refined look. The trunks are round from all directions and lighting conditions. There's just a little "popping" in the LOD switch. I've decided to have absolute control over the decimation of the trees and do it by hand. It pays, to me at any rate. There's one tree in the entire scene (excluding dead trees) and, in my opinion, it does a fair approximation. I'm using fraps to record, unregistered since I just installed it late last night and want to give it a go. It hits performance but I inadvertently recorded audio as well so I'm not certain that it added to the hit or not. Note the inordinatly high poly count and full eye-candy ie SSAO, Light Rays, Fogging, Lightning and so on.
Also note that I'm using my notebook with the graphics thingy to do all of this...that should say something :) when I'm not recording, it humms right along. If any of you have wandered through "pacifica1b_raining, this is that level and boy how its changed. I've spent a great deal of time trying to be more sensitive to light and the ocean reflects this (sorry, I just couldn't resist). Its an Oregon day that I'm trying to recreate; the light on days like this is found nowhere else and I'm oh so close.
I really do have to say that the more I learn about Torque, the more amazed I am by it. Blah, blah, sorry to prattle on, I just got back from work (an hour commute) so I'm a bit tired.
Performance has gone up and the trees will be higher in polys by about 30 to 150 or so. I'm learning Blender on my own (nothing at all like I remember it to be). When I'm as comfortable with it as I am with Photoshop I'll be writing some targeted and, hopefully, useful instructionals -since finding useful information on any particular version can be frustrateing at times. Vertex painting is my current mission as I want all of the trees and some of the undergrowth to be wind generator capable.
As you can see in the video I'm going for a more refined look. The trunks are round from all directions and lighting conditions. There's just a little "popping" in the LOD switch. I've decided to have absolute control over the decimation of the trees and do it by hand. It pays, to me at any rate. There's one tree in the entire scene (excluding dead trees) and, in my opinion, it does a fair approximation. I'm using fraps to record, unregistered since I just installed it late last night and want to give it a go. It hits performance but I inadvertently recorded audio as well so I'm not certain that it added to the hit or not. Note the inordinatly high poly count and full eye-candy ie SSAO, Light Rays, Fogging, Lightning and so on.
Also note that I'm using my notebook with the graphics thingy to do all of this...that should say something :) when I'm not recording, it humms right along. If any of you have wandered through "pacifica1b_raining, this is that level and boy how its changed. I've spent a great deal of time trying to be more sensitive to light and the ocean reflects this (sorry, I just couldn't resist). Its an Oregon day that I'm trying to recreate; the light on days like this is found nowhere else and I'm oh so close.
I really do have to say that the more I learn about Torque, the more amazed I am by it. Blah, blah, sorry to prattle on, I just got back from work (an hour commute) so I'm a bit tired.
About the author
see website: http://www.synchronicity3d.com
#2
02/02/2013 (9:19 am)
Oh my. This is incredible! As a fellow Oregonian I salute you! 
#3
02/02/2013 (10:47 am)
This looking good. I would make the grass a bit more small. 
#4
Given the weather conditions and latitude, I think your lighting is a little too neutral. Try adding the slightest amount of teal to it and see how that looks.
The waterplane (which is bittersweet at best) looks absolutely gorgeous from a distance, but up close, and in particular where you have the pools near the coast it looks weird with that amount of foam and the large size of the waves. Not much you can do about that. You could try making the pools area a waterblock that sits on top of the waterplane, which you'll have to lower (or raise the terrain) slightly to avoid weird glitches that occur when you intersect two water objects.
Lastly, and this is for everyone really, the Advanced Clouds look bloody awful! Just because it has the word "advanced" in front of it doesn't make the clouds any nicer. I think you'll find the basic clouds to look much better. Especially for this environment.
Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that. Hopefully you can get something out of it. Looking forward to the next update!
02/02/2013 (10:53 am)
Looking very nice indeed, JR. Leaps and bounds over the very first version in my opinion... And now for the negs:Given the weather conditions and latitude, I think your lighting is a little too neutral. Try adding the slightest amount of teal to it and see how that looks.
The waterplane (which is bittersweet at best) looks absolutely gorgeous from a distance, but up close, and in particular where you have the pools near the coast it looks weird with that amount of foam and the large size of the waves. Not much you can do about that. You could try making the pools area a waterblock that sits on top of the waterplane, which you'll have to lower (or raise the terrain) slightly to avoid weird glitches that occur when you intersect two water objects.
Lastly, and this is for everyone really, the Advanced Clouds look bloody awful! Just because it has the word "advanced" in front of it doesn't make the clouds any nicer. I think you'll find the basic clouds to look much better. Especially for this environment.
Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that. Hopefully you can get something out of it. Looking forward to the next update!
#5
Looks like things are improving quite a bit. I am sending you an email.
Ron
02/02/2013 (1:11 pm)
J,Looks like things are improving quite a bit. I am sending you an email.
Ron
#6
02/02/2013 (4:29 pm)
Your LOD's and FPS are improving nicely, keep it up :-) 
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