Improvement Idea: Side Textures for Forests

[KG26_Alpha]

The "razor trees" are an inherited problem, rendering forests with acceptable frame rates and the buildings/town/cities, will never be fixed unless they are removed/replaced,
adding extra textures to forests will slow the sim down further still, the "razor trees" were done that way for the reason of keeping frame rates fast low down.

I remember the introduction of the new palm trees around the time of Pacific Fighters, it was a complete frame rate killer and still can be on certain maps.

If its a choice of time being used by DT between a scenery or aircraft simulator, I would go in favour of the aircraft every time.

Unless you have some reworked textures you have made yourself already tested and ready to go.









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[[URU]BlackFox]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

I remember the introduction of the new palm trees around the time of Pacific Fighters, it was a complete frame rate killer and still can be on certain maps.

If its a choice of time being used by DT between a scenery or aircraft simulator, I would go in favour of the aircraft every time.

Not only the palm trees are a problem. Try zooming in Vyazma in the moscow map and in some parts you'll get stutters, for example. Big cities and populated scenery are very important in respect to inmersion, but it brings FPS down after a certain point.

If it's possible, however, I would very much like to have forests visible from the sides. I don't know how to do it directly, but am willing to collaborate in the process.

And as much as I agree with you in terms of preferring a flight sim instead of a scenery sim, I believe that the scenery part can add a lot to the simulation as a whole.

[Shardur]

The first step to alleviate the problem would be to make the tree textures double sided, so you can see from the bottom what you can see from the top.
That approach would probably coast very little frame rate and should already help immensely with the problem.

The other option would be to put a standing "Star" or "Cross" patten of textures into the trees so you have one layer of textures you can see from the side in addition to the ones you can see from the top.

I'm not proposing to add 3d models to the trees, just extra textures so they can be seen from all angels.

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by [URU]BlackFox

Not only the palm trees are a problem. Try zooming in Vyazma in the moscow map and in some parts you'll get stutters, for example. Big cities and populated scenery are very important in respect to inmersion, but it brings FPS down after a certain point.

Flying over the cities of Leningrad or Riga can really bring things down to a slideshow, even where there's nothing going on, but they're pretty much the exception, and not the rule. All other urban centers can be flown over with virtually no impact on frames whatsoever. Surprised that you're getting stutters over Vyazma, though. It's one of the smaller urban centers on any eastern front map.

[[URU]BlackFox]

Only when zooming in on certain parts of the city (I guess that it is because of the increased LOD). I'm currently flying a DCG in that map, so I get to visit the zone frequently, and have to S&D by zooming.

[Untamo]

S!

The "Oleg forest" has gotten me too dozens of times .. It would be really nice if TD could add a side texture to the forest edges.

[Phil_K]

Wonder if it's possible to make the tree discs into a slight cone shapes, like a Chinaman's hat type shape?

[[URU]BlackFox]

Originally Posted by Phil_K

Wonder if it's possible to make the tree discs into a slight cone shapes, like a Chinaman's hat type shape?

That is a really interesting approach Phil_K.

[Stealth_Eagle]

What I believe would be the best solution that shouldn't cause too much stress is create a pine tree texture to essentially "wrap" around the borders of the forest so it would be a simple thing to add I think. However, I don't know much about coding for this game so I wouldn't be the best person to ask and hopefully someone from TD sees this post. It would replace the horizontal side layers with a texture that would be visible and I believe viable considering the age of this sim.

Quick little fact that several people don't know about IL-2: The original release was intended to be an IL-2 study simulator with no other flyable aircraft and also was where the title of the series came from.