Opinions...

TheGMODSPAZ

Alrighty! First post on the forums (woo!)

Anyway - cut to the chase:

I've been working on this map for some time and I've recently started to add grass/ low level foliage and I would like some opinions on the grass, and how I can make it better looking. The grass consists of 2 perpendicular planes with a opacity masked material applied to it (This is for obvious performance reasons.).

Is there anyway I can make it look more realistic? Or is it unnoticeable in game anyway? (like when playing the game - not taking notice of the grasses construction) And is there a way to make animated grass, that's affected by wind? I know there is but I don't know how to so I would appreciate it if somebody could point me in the right direction.

Thanks

Obscura

hi! that grass is masked very badly.also try to modify the normals to get better looking.for the wind, i can recommend this, but maybe its not the best solution:
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/WorldPositionOffset.html
and for the grass:
http://wiki.polycount.com/VertexNormal#Foliage_Shading
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentFoliage?highlight=%28%5CbCategoryEnvironment%5Cb%29

good luck!

TheGMODSPAZ

Thanks for the quick reply!
There aren't any normal maps for it at the moment, but i'll make them! Would it be worth adding specular maps aswell? I can just see it reflecting more through the trees with a specular map applied.

Obscura

Sry, i mean the vertex normals.yes, specular is always worth,but it looks better with normalmap.also i would make a few variation for the grass, instead of using that "X" shaped

TheGMODSPAZ

Ah ok, I've only made one variant of grass model with one diffuse texture. Also, how would I go about making it look better from above? When looking down on the grass it's just a bunch of Xs on the ground :L

Obscura

Thats what i said, make some different model for it.And check out the third link.There are tons of useful info for making foliage.

TheGMODSPAZ

Alright, thanks for the advice!