SHADER setting-up trees

[Mitja Bonca]

I just have another question, why trees have these visible edges on the upper side, I heard that the UV passes the lower side to the upper one.
Anyone know how to salve this, without creating a double mirrored texture (i know that with mirroring the texture, I can get rid of this).
I mean this:

 

[r@m]

I always trim off the top of the mesh, quick connect and delete polygons, easiest way to fix it.

 

[Johnr777]

Or add a thin black strip on the bottom part of the tree’s alpha channel

 

[Mitja Bonca]

I always trim off the top of the mesh, quick connect and delete polygons, easiest way to fix it.

thx

 

[Mitja Bonca]

delete

 

[r@m]

Don`t really get it. Can you be please just a bit more specific? I don`t know what to trim off (its only a single polygon). thx

Select edges -> connect, slide edge until it's nearly at the top, apply, sub object poly mode, select and delete the polygons you just created.

 

[DrDoomsLab]

Or add a thin black strip on the bottom part of the tree’s alpha channel

Oh right i remember someone saying something like this ages ago. Thanks for reminding me.

How would you go about it in something like gimp? or photoshop? Just load it up and add one line of pixes by changing the size? then put a black strip in?

Cheers,
DrDoomsLab.

 

[Johnr777]

No, no need to mess with the image size, just use the select tool, select just a tiny bit of the bottom of the alpha channel, NOT the main image, and paint it 0,0,0 (black)

 

[Mitja Bonca]

Or add a thin black strip on the bottom part of the tree’s alpha channel

Still issues with trees.Will try to do this.

 

[LilSKi]

Still issues with trees.Will try to do this.

The real fix is to never put the UV map to the top edge of the texture. Bring the top UV down some and it will fix the ghost lines.

 

[Mitja Bonca]

Finally got it, thx to you @LilSKi . Btw, do you know maybe, if the object is address as Object, or as some AC`s reserved words, like for example GRASS, does it influence of DIP or FPS or anything? Cause I would like to make outside world drivable, and was wondering if this is in any ways issue for some fps drop or higher cpu usage?

 

[LilSKi]

Finally got it, thx to you @LilSKi . Btw, do you know maybe, if the object is address as Object, or as some AC`s reserved words, like for example GRASS, does it influence of DIP or FPS or anything? Cause I would like to make outside world drivable, and was wondering if this is in any ways issue for some fps drop or higher cpu usage?

You can make the outside world physical and it shouldn't hurt performance much. It would still be best to keep all physical objects not rendered and in smaller pieces. Being they are not rendered they don't add to the DIP.

Look at VIR for example. The whole map can be driven on and it runs fine.

 

[LeSunTzu]

Hi, I have a question in relation to a project that I started: the track is surrounded by a dense forrest with steep elevation (pic here: https://crdp.ac-amiens.fr/idp/idp80/uploads/2011/09/follembraycircuit-02.jpg) and I am wondering if planting a huge number of Y trees up to and along the crests is the way to go beyond the first couple of tree rows around the track. Would a 3D mesh for tree tops (like grass) be better performance-wise?

 

[LilSKi]

Hi, I have a question in relation to a project that I started: the track is surrounded by a dense forrest with steep elevation (pic here: https://crdp.ac-amiens.fr/idp/idp80/uploads/2011/09/follembraycircuit-02.jpg) and I am wondering if planting a huge number of Y trees up to and along the crests is the way to go beyond the first couple of tree rows around the track. Would a 3D mesh for tree tops (like grass) be better performance-wise?

For Bridgehampton I did about a first few rows as Y trees. Then I do a tree wall type object.

This is the tree wall setup from above.

Then if I had small "islands" of trees I just did a bunch of Y trees instead of walls.

 

[LeSunTzu]

Thanks a lot for the quick reply, now I know what to do.

 

[Johnr777]

The way you placed the trees to cover the hills and surroundings is extremely inefficient...(N.B. actually speaking with somebody else: copied from this thread).

I'm also new at this and just started the surrounding vegetation for my project, but I looked at LilSKi's Bridgehampton first... Its like a bible for track making, its no fluke its one of the top downloads at RD.

Anyways, the technique to learn here, regardless of software used, is to make "treewalls" that criss-cross one another, looking from below, it will give the illusion of a dense forest... but its a very low poly system and can cover massive areas.

 

[mantasisg]

Regarding tree walls I have a very useful simple tip. Probably it is not a new idea for most, but I often see rather different tree wall textures used than Y trees are. Sometimes it might be very useful to simply create a tree wall texture by arranging your Y trees textures. You can also have separate wall textures for large trees and bushes rather than both in same tree line texture and so on...

Also it is good to get normals up for tree walls, like for grass. Unless there is other way with some other shader IDK, I never used ksTree shader for tree walls, I don't remember why at the moment. Edit: LilSki siad the same a year ago, so probably there are no other way.

 

[mantasisg]

I just wonder if both KS_TREE_GROUP_A and KS_TREE_GROUP_B are correct to use in particular situations. I suppose GR_B is good for the places where trees are on the outside, or where there are not dense, or there are too few of them. And GR_A, I suppose, should fit where trees are a bit deeper, and where they are more dense, as there naturally would be less light around them.

 

[Johnr777]

Also it is good to get normals up for tree walls, like for grass. Unless there is other way with some other shader IDK, I never used ksTree shader for tree walls, I don't remember why at the moment. Edit: LilSki siad the same a year ago, so probably there are no other way.

ksGrass is often preferred because it gives the option to use a variation texture, which reduces the repetition look.

Yeah, you could opt for the single plane trees, but unless you are placing an insane amount of objects, no big savings in polys really

 

[mantasisg]

Hmm, probably would work, haven't thought about that, though IDK if it is necessary for trees, they are usually rather similar in colors, grass varies a lot more. Maybe it depends.

No I didn't meant single plane trees as a tree wall. But it could be an option in some cases when there are many sparse trees in distance, like in Magione.