YouGroove

Ar you sure it's not your resolution that slow down all ? I can run advanced games on 1024*768 on an old PC , but going in 1600, the games runs very slow ! Or perhaps you should look on your Hardware 3D card settings on the 3D card menus ? Does games and other 3D stuff, run well on your machine also with some advanced settings on ?

Didn't you found some collision examples on WIKI or Documentation sub forum ?

So the problem seems to be lot more related to some engine config or it's computer, if the terrain_arctic don't run as it should be; so indeed trying to run some more complex scene like the forest can't run well. @paramecij : your level is beautifull !

I think the problem seems to be related to the models and scene settings. @scotty0351: Why not uploding the scene source (perhaps with modified (damaged) textures, to keep your copyrights) for LE users to test it under the engine and tweak settings, change models etc ... ?

Yes that's really strange ? When with LE i create a terrain a put lot more trees that these on the screenshot , all is running fine. Perhaps the problem is with polycount on trees ? or shadows ?

Some trees have lot of branches, they should be displayed maximum details only on nearest range. Or try less branches, lot more LOD optimisations like : 3 sided cylinders for little branches, not more until you are very near ! Maximum cylinders of 5 , 7 or more polygons side only visible when you are in front. MipMapping can improve frame rate also. Shadows only on nearest trees will make you gain a lot of frame rate, i see shadows on far trees. Another technique is doing like UT3, you can use projected precalculated shadow sprite : texture projection that indeed is incredibly fast compared to real shadows. A game is AI, HUD, particles, characters, etc ... so your visual scene should run as fast and smooth possible before adding these elements that will also eat power

@Marleys Ghost : Why in your case it's ok compared to Lazlo ? What you have done differently ? the materials of objects ?

You'll be the next big indie success story Well i'll just wait to see it in action, just hope it will be something fun to play. Minecraft success, is based on the exploration and creative side of the game.

Ok, so it's no more some tiles algorithm problem ... For shadows, i think you could ignore them for grass, or bake them just by changing grass color, like shadowed on the base of the grass and lightened to the top : It should be an option , even AAA games not put shadows for grass or it is some option. A good trick used in some games is to make some premade bunch of grass, i mean lot of grass patches together. But this will work only on regular surface depending or you could have grass polys ont the ground and others on the air ! You could have lot of grass this way and win lot of FPS using only some few objects , each containing lot of grass polys. I seen that trick on some 3D engine editors when you painted trees on the terrain, you painted a bunch of several trees that were one 3D model in fact , that's help a lot the engine (and this is also for regular floor, not too much distorted). Why not changing grass ressource to cristals , rocks or anything else ? Could you post some pictures , it would be interesting seeing before and after optimisation ?

Even looping through just the surrounding tiles is a decent amount of looping and slows things down (I tried that already). With tiles being 1x1 it's a good amount of iterations. I think what I'll do is loop over that surrounding grid over multiple cycles so it splits things up some. Instead of looping you could use some virtual grid put on a 2D table. Let's suppose each sqaure have 100 units of width. If you would be on position 90, 0 , you should be be on first squarre on the 2D table that could be adressed like table(0,0) When you move if you would be on 150,0 you should be on sesond squarre of 2D map : table (1,0) Just by calculating simply : (PositionX / 100) take the rounded value and you have the squarre on where you are. So you don't have to loop throught all grid , just determine on what squarre you are and take account of surrounding ones. And you would have on that table for each adressed field some object containing some pointers to the trees that would be on that squarre. And you oculd write some object containing tah list of trees and having a method to show/hide them.

Can't wait for LE3 !

You'd have to loop through all the trees and do a distance check. That's to much looping because there really are a ton of trees in the entire scene but because of the top/down view only a handful are visible at any given time. That's something to avoid indeed ! Another solution could be to check for surrounding tiles, each tile would have it's own memory table containing the position of trees on top of it. So you would just : - recalculate what are the surrounding tiles when you would leav the current tile where you are on - Hide the trees from the tiles that passed from visible to hidden when you moved - for each surrounding tile, read the memory table with trees positions and display (or manage) only that trees So this way you would just work per surrounding tiles instead of all level and manage only trees on tiles arround the player

@Vickie : You seem to be some hot woman ; even if you are married with Josh , i just hope he's not jaleous We should create a new section called "combattive and hot discussions".

There is another 3D engine having lot more closed policy than LE2, where you must be register with a a detailled form. Than they decide if they send you the trial of the engine , that seems to be indie price. I also tried to say that they won't gather lot of people in that way, they responded me that this was their way, and it worked, even if i liked it or not. So with LE2 that's the same way, this is Josh choice , he is the author of the engine and he lead things as he wants indeed. He's the man that put's lot of work behind the scene. My advice could be : don't respond much on that thread,don't take all so personaly , just forget all that unconstructive discussions and say just a simple goodbye ,even for people you don't like ! I it's just a forum , you'll never met perhaps peolple here in real, so no dishonnor or whatever ! If you buy the engine and come back : I would suggest you to just change your user (or ask for a user change) if you buy the engine and come to the forums. I also experimented like you some little war on some other 3D engine forum, because we've gone too far from anything that i took also too much personnaly. So I changed my user , take a new departure , exposed my work, aksed questions , suggested, encouraged people, and all was fine after. And i appreciated my old ennemies

Most of the forums are for registered developers only I understand Josh, it's a deep hard task for him to bring up LE3D ,and the new mobile platforms. He can't spend time , even minutes or spend time writting posts, with non developpers owners of the engine. Registered developpers are priority after LE3D and mobile tasks. Perhaps we could write some special section one day named "Non registered developpers" ? But indeed , other people not developpers of the engine, will have lot more time to answer your questions. There are very kind and nice people, that helped and given me a lot (with lot of patience also ) when i was very new to the engine ( even with sometimes repetitive or stupid questions ) ! My advice, would be : Try the engine, if you appreacite it and like it , than buy it (it's not that incredibly expensive) ! And we will help ou indeed if you need.

A method would be to calculate the obuding box of the tree, if it is not on the camera field you would not display the tree ! I think your idea of processing only the grids around the player will help a lot. That's power display routine , so yes i think C++ would be better for maximum speed gain.

You can perform some sort of tree bounding box culling algorythm ? When the the tree is not near the player , and bouding box is not visible o ncamera frustrum, just don tdisplay the tree ? Do you use some software LOD ? if dist > 100 show model 1 else show model 2 end if The problem with that is as I move it keeps showing more models but not hiding the ones out of camera view so the fps starts dropping. A picture could be better ? Do you mean trees behind the player or outside of the camera field are displayed in the 3D buffer only ?

If you like the 3D engine, don't be disappointed by someone. Stick with it , use it and make something great with it, it's your project that matters not people posts that you couldn't like

@Pixel Perfect : What method do you use to make your own textures ?

You can find ground texture packs in Skyrim users addons modules also , some have permissive rights to use them ! It could be cool to find some nature walls covered with siome green moss textures; somewhat like Unreal SDK materials.

Madness ?? THIS - IS - WORKING !!! ahhaaahah great title

I think 3DWS should remain simple if it would be incorporated directly in the world editor for LE3D , with only smooth functionnality ! I don't know if it is complicated or not to implement that smooth feature, but it's i htink only some sort of variable on the model no ? Under Blender we can turn on/off smooth and 3D engines just take account of this flag ? 3DWS should reamin fro level Building in UT3 style , for general shapes of the level, all other level specific and detailled models should be done under an external program indeed that allow fast and advanced functions like all tools like loop select, loop cut etc ...

I already seen a little team implementing Nvidia Physix for some basic cloath wihtout too much difficulty. I don't know if this library is more complex or easy to integrate ? It will add lot of dynamaic and life to characters, the main clothes i see can be on hair of characters, capes, some parts of a jacket etc ... or on some static clothes , like flags and any other things in the level ! The best way for performance is to use it cleverly, like on the character Hero only, or not all ennemies, or using it only on one part for each character. The number of points (vertex) or bones and precision, update frequency is what will affect performance. Once again i don't know if it is possible to upadte physics cloths each second , than interpolate ? it would be a lot of performance gain perhaps.

That's looks great. Well i just looked at pictures ! So some it will be some FPS game , it will be great if you add some more 3D assets on some places on the terrain, why not some rocks for example ? Or some destroyed cars or old abandonned buildings semli destroyed ? It's just curiosity,and i could not produce such level and shaders for animations, but will it be standard FPS or will it have some originals things ? (theres is so much FPS games, that's a genre i don't play a lot) The last ones i played was Bioshock and Deus Ex, there are special ones ! Keep it up !

Yes, i think it's specially designed for CSG inside LE3D world Editor ! "box" mapping is not the only way, you have Atlas mapping also and others ...