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[Crispy]

We can totally afford that!

Sure. Just let me rummage around in the back of my couch...

 

SpeedTree is aimed at AAA devs, and priced accordingly. For them it could definitely be worth it (especially with the huge modern budgets they get) - it's definitely a sweet piece of tech, and time is often more precious than money for them. But it's completely out of the reach of mod teams and indie devs (more's the pity). Also, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to use it in combination with GPL'ed code without violating one or both licences... the GPL would require us to distribute SpeedTree code with the mod, and the SpeedTree licence would forbid us from distributing SpeedTree code with the mod. Ouch!

 

So, yeah, not happening.

 

TDM's model+leafparticle trees are pretty sweet anyway, so there shouldn't be any tears shed over that!

[Nyarlathotep]

I still think we should consider incorporating GroundZero's team's code at some point, though. How can you not drool at the thought of rendering entire forests almost good enough to rival SpeedTree?

[Springheel]

I'm sure there's at least one FM out there with a large, daytime forest in it, but I doubt it's common enough to get worked up over.

[Komag]

I thought Oblivion did NOT make trees in real time, but just used speedtree to generate them during development. In other words, you and I can find the same exact trees in our copies of the game.

[Crispy]

If that's true, then the developers are lying.

 

SpeedTreeRT as seen in The Elder Scrolls IV®: Oblivion™

-- from http://www.speedtree.com/html/speedtreert.htm

[bob_arctor]

Hmm can't remember with Oblivion. The LOD effects were crap, that's all I remember.

 

I know they have particle leaves, and if you spin under the tree it does look wierd as the sprites rotate with you, like in Dungeon Keeper. But no-one notices or complains.

 

$8,500 is nothing really. Under 5 grand UK pounds. Big commercial games are made with 40 people, and cost millions, Speed tree is so cheap that what Nyarla says seems irrelevant in the context of big budget games.

 

Of course for mods it's pretty much right, unless we have someone with 5 grand burning a hole in their pocket....

[OrbWeaver]

If that's true, then the developers are lying.

SpeedTreeRT as seen in The Elder Scrolls IV®: Oblivion™

-- from http://www.speedtree.com/html/speedtreert.htm

 

I can't see anything on that page indicating that SpeedTree is used dynamically during the game: the image caption "SpeedTree as seen in Oblivion" could equally well refer to the pre-generated trees which Komag mentioned.

 

I have seen the pre-generated claim mentioned elsewhere, but not having a copy of Oblivion I have no personal experience either way.

[SneaksieDave]

I'd heard it was used during development to generate forests, and then the artists went in and tweaked by hand to their opinion of perfection. This is probably easily confirmed by simply saving and reloading a saved game and checking the locations of trees nearby, or doing so with someone else's savegame (if it's per-machine, which I doubt).

[ZylonBane]

I can't see anything on that page indicating that SpeedTree is used dynamically during the game: the image caption "SpeedTree as seen in Oblivion" could equally well refer to the pre-generated trees which Komag mentioned.

What exactly do you think the "RT" in "SpeedTreeRT" stands for?

[Crispy]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but: What ZylonBane said.

 

They specifically mentioned SpeedTreeRT, indicating that they mean the real-time component. The offline designer, SpeedTreeCAD (which lets you tweak the procedural tree definitions), is a separate tool.

 

It may well be that this is a misleading piece of marketing spin, but a literal reading implies that Oblivion uses the real-time generation.

 

This is probably easily confirmed by simply saving and reloading a saved game and checking the locations of trees nearby, or doing so with someone else's savegame (if it's per-machine, which I doubt).

They're probably at least saving a random seed in the savefile so that the trees are generated the same way. By rights they should be doing that, anyway, because it'd look odd otherwise.

[Komag]

Well I didn't just pull the idea out my hat, I read about it last year when Oblivion came out.

 

Here are a few links that talk about it:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/codex/team_teamprof_nberry2.htm

specifically

"To tackle the problem of creating high detail, and fully animating foliage and tree art, we solicited the aid of IDV’s SpeedTree technology. Oblivion artists were able to quickly generate complex and organic tree shapes with relative ease, thanks to a highly streamlined, yet powerful and intuitive interface. Using parent/child hierarchies and iterative branch levels comprised of highly modifiable cylinder primitives, an entire tree shape can be created in a manner of minutes, just by adjusting numerical values and tweaking spline curve handles.

 

The resulting shapes are very similar to what the artists normally would painstakingly create by hand, polygon by polygon, within a modeling program. Perhaps best of all, the tree objects created save the artists even more time by being innately rigged for animation. After the programmers made our engine render and animate the trees, artists were able to quickly place their models in the game and carefully observe the results in real-time."

 

Other sources help clarify that apparantly the "real-time" is in reference to working during development, not gameplay. In other words, the forests aren't generated when you play the game, but rather during development they were able to quickly generate trees and tweak them and do it all in real-time which saved lots of develop time (they didn't have to always compile, animate, etc). Also, i"real-time" may in part refer to the swaying and leafy movement organic animation system which sounds like it comes with Speedtree.

 

Here is another: http://www.360-gamer.com/feature.asp?id=360

specifically

"...trees and forests created with the help of the licensed SpeedTree system.

 

Believable forests were always our goal for the big graphical challenge for Oblivion. We use SpeedTree to create the look of each tree, but everything else we do ourselves… all the rendering, shader effects, etc."

 

So with that regard, we could scrape up $8500, generate tons of awesome trees and foliage, and use them in The Dark Mod!

[Crispy]

Sure, but that could still mean that they used SpeedTreeRT code in-game. It depends whether they're loading actual model data (like Doom 3's md5meshes), or SpeedTree's own data files which get converted into model data at runtime (in a deterministic manner). You've assumed the former; I've assumed the latter. Either could be true, but if the former is true then the makers of SpeedTree are not being very truthful.

 

This is a pretty pointless conversation.

 

So with that regard, we could scrape up $8500, generate tons of awesome trees and foliage, and use them in The Dark Mod!

OK. Since you suggested it, you get to organise the fundraising effort.

[SneaksieDave]

Add those quotes to the 'we used speedtree to generate forests (saving tons of manual work) and then tweaked them by hand to perfection' comment from a preview (no reference, only memory), and it's clear that the tech can and has been used in more than one way.

[Baddcog]

This is my oblivion folder path...

 

C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\meshes\trees

 

There are a few tree models in that folder. I can't see spending $8500 to save time making 8 trees though. They obviously used it for plants too, and there must be 50 plant models in game.

 

Instead of saving a fund to buy speedtree we should start the BaddTree fund and give me $8500, I won't waste any time making trees.

 

The funny thing is that the trunk aren't really that hard to make. You make cones/cylinders. Texture tem with a cylindrical map, THEN bend em with the bend tool and align/attach the pieces.

It's getting low poly trees to have realistic looking leaves that's the hard part. And doing them with particles isn't all that hard, but not perfect, just as close as anyones got so far.