If we could only have new trees....
 

Playing this great sim for 420 hours now and many more are to come.......
but one kept annoying me all the time during these 420 hours....the trees.

Form above 1 km they look fine with different set of colours.
But from close the trees look ugly, the trees are glittering and the shadow of the trees are glittering too. There are also 2d images added amongs the trees to make it look like a forest. And if this is not enough you can fly through them.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a23...5-17_00002.jpg
New better trees would make this game look so much better!
This is an example from Rise of Flight, if we could have these!
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a23...r_400a_005.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a23...-Flight_29.jpg

and you can actually hit them.....

I also like how ROF colors forests from high up, they look great and much more realistic.

+1

Also the trees in ROF make a thrashing sound against your plane when you hit the tops of them. Very cool!

Agreed. The trees we have no are ugly and don't have damage model. Worst case really.

I don't have them on. I never really understood the idea of having the quantity of trees on a landscape as user selectable and having no collision detection. Seems as though the new GFX engine is sticking with what we have.

The console version BOP (and its cousin WOP for the PC) had trees as a fixed part of the landscape. If you flew close to them you could hear the rustle of the leaves - but hit a branch and your wing got ripped off. I expected to see something similar with ClOD - there must have been a reason for MG to have opted for what we have though I don't know what it is or why.

As much as i agree, i think the current performance patch must come clean first

Then there should be a FM revision focusing on AC performance and some other details (such as messing up flaps when deployed at high speeds, radiator and canopy drag, polishing some engine management procedures, further improving AI, enhancing sounds, enabling full GUI functionality, basic tree collision model...)

After that a third patch should take place addressing the graphic issues (wave scale, shorelines, maybe clouds, better aim reticules with day/night switches...)

When current performance patch goes final, maybe the devs are free to work on graphics and FM issues simultaneously; although as they're allocating more and more resources to BOM, perhaps an external team patching CLoD would be preferable, like with Daidalos Team with IL-2 1946

IDK. I'm probably in the minority here. Apart from the non existant crash detection and graphical issues I think the trees look fine in CoD.

I have no real issues with them in RoF either, but all the trees spin like they are on Christmas pedestals.... or like ballerinas from the start up loading menu. It's always been disconcerting to see them do that. I'll be following a Fokker, and suddenly I'm like a chimpanzee with something shiney. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

They said they are rendering the Trees/Grass/Clouds and that it would take 9 days, but whats rendering suppose to mean? The bit I don't like about the trees is that I think there are far to many of them. They should also be closer together aswell because with no collisions you spend your time flying through trees when low to the ground.

I dont mind how they look but it seems like they're one of the causes of micro stutter so I hope they fix that.

Collisions would also be nice.

The current trees performance hit and lack of collision model is a big issue for me. Funny thing was I used to moan about the 'spinning trees' in RoF but you get a better appreciation of the complexities involved when you see the problems they are having in CoD.

I would love to have RoF's trees in this game (or something of equal quality and perfromance) and they could do an Irish jig and I would still be happy to have them !

Not for me! They may look good in photos but they turn around and look at you as you fly past!

Gives me the willies everytime I fly low!

Is this for real?

There are problems 20 times the magnitude that need addressing with the flight models, damage models and AI before we can start to kick back and yarn about trees!!

Welcome to the il2 community... "I don't care if my plane is flying backwards where the smeg are my hedges".... ;)

"Hedges? i dont care about hedges! the smegging pilots head is too big...no...i mean too small!"

I seem to think in an exceptional way. Because I couldn`t care less about trees in a cfs. They could have just upgraded IL2 trees if you ask me.

What about driving vehicles? Anybody think that we won`t see them destroying whole forests anywhere in the future in this sim?

Or driving straight through them.

I see dots. Sometimes they turn into planes and try to kill me. But mostly they just disappear. I see dead dots :confused:

i haven't seen those ghost dots since the new patch... but i have had disappearing-reappearing dots... they disappear when u get closer to them, then when u get even closer they magically reappear, that problem i didn't have before the latest patch

and about the trees... i think the ones in cliffs of dover are fine, because unlike with il2fb, the terrain isn't as flat, so its not like someone can just fly in the trees to hide in as cover for a long time, and they need to look good from low altitude and high altitude, and not be total doom 1 style 2d textures
i think its pointless to have good aircraft, if they don't have equally as good a world to fly in

ROF trees in CoD, Do NOT want!

I agree with the criticism of the trees on appearance, density, numbers, positioning.

No collision detection is also major.

I too much prefer the ROF trees - they look excellent down low. Also ROF has got positioning and placement correct so that it all blends better to create a believable landscape. (and I don't find their slight movement in ROF an issue or annoyance).

After their mea culpas on initial state of the sound engine and then state of graphics engine - and subsequent rewrites for both, I suspect that if truth be told they would also admit to a majorly screwed up landscape / terrain / tree implentation.

The difference in this case is I doubt if they will feel compelled to fix it. :evil:

i dont fly ROF, without the exception, that i once tried the demo version.i immediately noticed the "turning" of the trees, which indeed looks distracting.
but what i think, what ROF does way better than CLOD,is the colours.everytime i look at screenshots or vids from ROF, it looks photorealistic, regarding the colours.its just miles ahead of CLOD.
if we could have those colours in CLOD, plus trees like ROF with collision model, without the spinning effect, then a dream would come true...

I will be happy if the trees get a decent collision model in the near future and stops shimmering. That my biggest concerns with the trees.
Maybe on top that the trees in medium distance dont have this 2Di-ish looks, but I could live with that if they only have a collision detection :rolleyes:

I really do not want the "wandering" trees of RoF.

Part of the problem with COD's trees is they wave around as if blown by the wind, which causes the shadows to shimmer and flicker.
If they stopped the movement it would help loads and i doubt we would notice or miss it.

Right. The trees look fine to me

Or only enable it while we are on the ground during start up. In the air or on taxi it doesn't matter so they don't need to sway. Playing GTR 1 + 2 I'd notice trees swaying, but only if you were still. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Speed Tree is the issue with most of the graphic problems in the game. I have no real reason to believe that, but it's a hunch.

A option would be good, im sure its the reason the shadows flicker and shimmer.

Agreed furbs, but I think having some decent AA would remove or reduce the flickering.

Oh and we need more variety where's the chestnut and oaks ;)

Welcome to the il2 community... "I don't care if the graphics look like CFS 1 where the heck is my 0,05% FM correction".... :mrgreen:

I don't know about you but I don't buy games for the graphics. I'd rather the game look like CFS1 as opposed to play like CFS1.

I don't buy games purely for graphics either. But for me it is one of the elements that are important to get right - on a par with many others (including FM, dM, accurate modelling of aircraft, good gameplay, ability to run with adequate fps, etc).

Failing on any one of them can bring a game down. And of course each individual will rate the different facets higher or lower according to his personal taste. For me currently COD fails on terrain/landscape.

(something to make clear - COD's rendition of terrain is heavier resource-wise and more advanced technically than either ROF's DX9 implementation or the old il-2. But I prefer ROF and many old il-2 maps to the current COD. COD's map failing is in its artistic direction/implementation and a resulting lack of coherence in the end result.

Strong evidence suggests that the failings are due to a combination of botched then remade earlier versions, technical difficulties (SpeedTree), and insufficeint resources/time to get things right - in other words the same as with many of the other problem areas in the game.

And from the recent screenshots for the Russian sequel they seem to have learnt lessons and are getting better results by passing off the map-making to a third party.)

2012
with good hardware in the market
the graphics is a must:-P

i was being sarcastic as was the post i quote, there are no planes flying backwards either... no need to raise a fake question, no one has to choose between looking like CFS 1 and playing like CFS 1

for me FM is important AND graphics are important; it's impossible to have a 100% real simulation, there has to be concessions to realism here and there for the good of the global picture, there just isn't enough CPU power available to have a near perfect combat simulation, that is not going to happen; so what's left? for me, immersion; a simulation, among other things, IS a visual reconstitution, so graphics are important, they don't have to trample the FM development, but they also don't have to take the eternal backseat

besides, i've stated before in this thread that my priority is performace of the graphics engine, seconded by the FM issues, and only then the visual enhancements, so there's really no controversy i guess

or perhaps you don't like my avatar? ;)

Something else (with regards to forests) that should be considered is taking away the option to get rid of forests in settings... Just look at some pictures of some WWII 109's stashed away in the tree line. How are we mission builders supposed to hide targets at the edge of the forest for some realism, if people can just make them vanish?

You'll have the people that have paid good money to have the ability to see trees with no FPS horrors, and those people will be the ones that won't be able to see the targets as easily as those pilots that have their trees "turned off".

And another thing is, what happens when they add collision detection to the trees and those that have their trees turned off, come in to straffe ground targets? They'll also have less to worry about when straffing?

Having that checkbox in settings is a ridiculous idea imo. Trees should be part of the map (for everybody).. period.

until or if the trees are done in .NET and not C++ they will most likely leave the option to turn them off because of the FPS/stuttering the interop causes :(

I would propose another solution, one that hopefully doesn't force everyone down a specific road.

Let's do it like it was in IL2. Back when we were flying the previous series and our PCs couldn't take high detail clouds, server admins would set clouds for low detail in their missions and just place a warning on their forums or a pop-up message on the in-game chat bar every now and then.

"Warning: setting clouds to high might result in a combat disadvantage".

This way the players are informed and the choice is up to them.

A similar thing could be done for trees and the feature expanded a bit by making the lowest possible tree setting a server enforced parameter (just like realism settings).

Once graphics are optimized, then servers could simply force people to use, for example, at least low trees: if i wanted to and my PC could take it i would still be able to set trees to high for the eye candy, but only the amount set by the server would have collision detection.

Then as everyone's hardware gradually catches up, server admins could up that setting.

A "Tree setting" similar to IL2's would be a great idea for the team to do, combined with the ability for a server to lock trees as "on" would be just excellent.