DevBlog - Trees Rework

Dear Players,

 

It's been a while again since my last developer blog and I definitively think about doing this more often. First of all the Halloween events are still in progress and I've seen A LOT of players that love the event and I am very happy it turned out this way. This is definitely we plan on continuing so expect even more, better and bigger events for Christmas and further on!

Now, I don't want to make this any longer than needed so let's jump straight into it: the tree rework.

 

WHY?

Because as of this moment the trees in our game look like complete garbage, they are unoptimized, causing issues and we want to step up with the overall look of New Z.

 

THE GOAL

• Optimize / fix them. (Lower poly count and fix some other technical issues) - So that they no longer cause potential issues.
• Improve the texture quality. Higher the resolution making the tree look 10 times better. (literally)
• Fix the model so that they don't longer look like "block trees".
• Fix the LODs, improve the LODs.
• Fix the "stuttering issue". (when looking at the trees and walking backwards) when the tree switches LODs there is a "stutter" that doesn't feel / look natural.

Trees are just a start. We plan on improving the rocks, terrain textures, other nature, buildings and more in the near future with the overall aim to bring New Z to the next level. Please understand that these changes have minimal impact on player's performance. We wouldn't do this if it would negatively affect players performance and therefor we are also doing a lot of testing before any of this gets released.

Also to fix and optimized all the tree LODs. A lot of them have missing LODs and LODs with incorrect pivot points. This results in players (when looking at the trees and walking backwards) when the tree switches LODs there is a "stutter" that doesn't feel / look natural.

Therefor I also made new, improved and more optimized LODs:

^ MAIN MODEL - LOD1 - LOD2

 

THE RESULT

After this rework the trees look VERY much better, they are fixed, improved and optimized so it's basically a win-win situation. This rework contributes in our overall goal to give New Z a real refreshing own "New Z" look where we start with the most common / obvious and noticeable things, in this case the trees.

 

This is just for the current pine tree models. We have 4-5 other types of trees in the game where the same improvements have to be made. I used the pine trees as an example as these are the most common in all our maps.

 

Let me know in the comments what you think!

 

Best Regards,

 

Sven

looks awesome!! 

10/10 for the rework of trees, that looks absolutely amazing!

Quick update: (forgot to add)

Also to fix and optimized all the tree LODs. A lot of them have missing LODs and LODs with incorrect pivot points. This results in players (when looking at the trees and walking backwards) when the tree switches LODs there is a "stutter" that doesn't feel / look natural.

Therefor I also made new, improved and more optimized LODs:

1 hour ago, MKRYDR said:

looks awesome!! 

10/10 for the rework of trees, that looks absolutely amazing!

Great! Thanks for the feedback!

Looks much nicer

great Job Sven 

10/10 for the rework of trees,  LOOK IS RLY GOOD. GOOD JOB SIR. ! 

3 hours ago, MKRYDR said:

looks awesome!! 

10/10 for the rework of trees, that looks absolutely amazing!

yeah man +1 

hmmm gooodddd

Great job as always Sven! 

I aim / see this as a start to bring New Z to the next level.

Going to finish the pine trees collection and then jump to the other collections.

Other things I am considering doing for now:

- Upper terrain tile / texture resolutions. This is still something that's on a very low resolution by the engine.

- Rework the rocks. Fix them, improve them, optimize them in the same process as the trees.

- Rework building textures. Upper quality, higher resolutions, optimize them, new lods etc.

 

Let me know if you guys have any questions / idea's! :)

The tree optimization looks AWESOME!!! Good Job @Sven.

1 hour ago, Sven said:

Rework the rocks. Fix them, improve them, optimize them in the same process as the trees

As for the future improvements, especially the rocks, I hope this aspect includes removal of the extraneous piles that are littering the map and making travel more difficult than it needs to be. Especially when it comes to the boulder piles that are located near the north entrance as you come from Barth Farm. There never was any rhyme or reason for those and tons of others to be where they are. For example, boulders placed on top of existing roads. (Yes, I'm still trying to get those and other piles removed as they should never have been place in the first place.)

To all the devs, keep up the great work.

Have a Nice Day!!!  

I've never really cared about the textures of the tree but I do like it, if it improves the performance of the client.

39 minutes ago, GENETICZZ said:

I've never really cared about the textures of the tree but I do like it, if it improves the performance of the client.

yeah maybe trees is not good but New Users is need a new texture quality sir

 

 

Edited October 30, 2018 by BESTSMOKE

1 hour ago, CampersRUs said:

The tree optimization looks AWESOME!!! Good Job @Sven.

As for the future improvements, especially the rocks, I hope this aspect includes removal of the extraneous piles that are littering the map and making travel more difficult than it needs to be. Especially when it comes to the boulder piles that are located near the north entrance as you come from Barth Farm. There never was any rhyme or reason for those and tons of others to be where they are. For example, boulders placed on top of existing roads. (Yes, I'm still trying to get those and other piles removed as they should never have been place in the first place.)

To all the devs, keep up the great work.

Have a Nice Day!!!  

Thanks for the feedback! It's great that it's not JUST optimizations but a lot of reasons to rework / fix the trees. Also plan on adding more in the future but first I wanted to fix and rework the current trees to a state that I am happy with it myself. Previous they literally looked like *ss.

As for the rocks thanks for the points. I have to say if with a rework there I would look more at the individual models and not really where they are placed. This is more a job from Steve's side.

59 minutes ago, GENETICZZ said:

I've never really cared about the textures of the tree but I do like it, if it improves the performance of the client.

It's funny cause I never really realist it either, but the ones still currently live in the game don't only look like sh*t but are also unoptimized, missing lods, bad quality, bad quality of lods, model mistakes, possibly causing errors / crashes and even more stuff. Enough reason to rework them and fix everything at once!

If you go in game now, after reading this, you'll probably have a "re-look" at the current trees and actually realize how bad they look. Funny.  I bet you can't take your eyes from it anymore now. Sorry!!

21 minutes ago, BESTSMOKE said:

yeah maybe trees is not good but New Users is need a new texture quality sir

 

 

Exactly. Especially as we of course also want to literally "step up our game". (very literally actually haha) Anyways, improvements in textures can't harm much. As of right now it would mostly affect GPU performance but these days people have averagely more than better GPU's.

51 minutes ago, Sven said:

Thanks for the feedback! It's great that it's not JUST optimizations but a lot of reasons to rework / fix the trees. Also plan on adding more in the future but first I wanted to fix and rework the current trees to a state that I am happy with it myself. Previous they literally looked like *ss.

As for the rocks thanks for the points. I have to say if with a rework there I would look more at the individual models and not really where they are placed. This is more a job from Steve's side.

It's funny cause I never really realist it either, but the ones still currently live in the game don't only look like sh*t but are also unoptimized, missing lods, bad quality, bad quality of lods, model mistakes, possibly causing errors / crashes and even more stuff. Enough reason to rework them and fix everything at once!

If you go in game now, after reading this, you'll probably have a "re-look" at the current trees and actually realize how bad they look. Funny.  I bet you can't take your eyes from it anymore now. Sorry!!

Exactly. Especially as we of course also want to literally "step up our game". (very literally actually haha) Anyways, improvements in textures can't harm much. As of right now it would mostly affect GPU performance but these days people have averagely more than better GPU's.

Yes sir +1 we will waiting  

Looking great! Finally getting rid of the long potatoes

What does this actually mean for the performance of the game?

4 hours ago, Sven said:

As for the rocks thanks for the points. I have to say if with a rework there I would look more at the individual models and not really where they are placed. This is more a job from Steve's side.

Would you please pass this on to @Steve Ecke? The placement, as well as the texture, needs to be fixed.

8 hours ago, Tawasuda said:

Looking great! Finally getting rid of the long potatoes

What does this actually mean for the performance of the game?

Well. Nothing will really change pretty much while at the same time the trees will look 10 times better.

So related to performance:

• Possibly a little better performance.
• Lods are "fixed" so this will 100% give better performance. Also created better and new LODs
• Fixed a major crash / memory problem possibly caused by the trees. (this one is the best one IMO)

Related to the looks:

• Tree textures will look better and higher quality.
• Trees won't look so "blocky" anymore. (fixed all those cutting edges)

Related to gameplay:

• No longer "die-ing behind trees", or getting shot from a player behind a tree where you can't see that player.
• 10x better look of the game.
• Improved the LOD switches: no more "stuttering" when moving and looking at the trees.

6 hours ago, CampersRUs said:

Would you please pass this on to @Steve Ecke? The placement, as well as the texture, needs to be fixed.

I was actually thinking about what you pointed out but these boulders at the end of the roads are placed to avoid the straight cutting edge of the road kind of. (sorry if this sounds confusing)

These are placed, as the roads ends here, to make it look more realistic and to avoid the road randomly having a straight cut line in the landscape.

TREE REMOTE VIEW BAD. Maybe new system is fixed the problem 

1 hour ago, BESTSMOKE said:

TREE REMOTE VIEW BAD. Maybe new system is fixed the problem 

Not sure what you mean with those first four words

3 minutes ago, Sven said:

Not sure what you mean with those first four words

Long distance tree view is not good  

1 hour ago, BESTSMOKE said:

Long distance tree view is not good  

True but this is mostly for optimizations reason. I am working on improving these looks while keeping the same (or even better) performance.

1 hour ago, Sven said:

True but this is mostly for optimizations reason. I am working on improving these looks while keeping the same (or even better) performance.

I believe you can sir. I trust your job. 

2 hours ago, BESTSMOKE said:

I believe you can sir. I trust your job.