Grass in Open-world Environments
polycounter lvl 6
Hey guys, I was just wondering what do you think is the best way to create grass (or foliage in genera) in an open-world environment for a stylized game?
I've been looking at Breath of the Wild and the grass seems really interactive and looks like it's more than just using cards, but I can't imagine the grass being high in polycount either.
Thoughts? :0
I've been looking at Breath of the Wild and the grass seems really interactive and looks like it's more than just using cards, but I can't imagine the grass being high in polycount either.
Thoughts? :0
Replies
I'm sorry but even though I watched some videos about the game, I'm not really sure what you mean.
Also how is the interactivity connected to having cards, if they have at all...
Well, they must be "cards". They could have a few divisions.
To keep foliage optimized, use density scaling setting, that is conneted to a graphic option. You can also use distance culling, but I'm sure this is not really what you mean't by how they keep their polycount low and whatnot.
There is also this techniquem I don't know what its called, but what it does, and it usually used with flipbook animated particles and materials, is that it basically cuts out the unnecessary areas, so the black or transparent parts of your mesh , and therefore it really nicely reduces overdraw. For this one, you need a nice technique, and you are probably not able to do it, but its still a nice reminder to that you should reduce overdraw as much as possible. You would be surprised how much it can help you. Its an another question that we are not talking about full overdraw with lit translucent objects. You want to use alpha test. Still, the very first thing, is you want the least overdraw.
From here, vertex shader things could come, like wind simulation, "player interaction" that moves it, if this is also for any ai, then way more.
The grass in BotW responds to wind and environmental effects as well as the player. Link pushes it around as he moves, he can cut it and light it on fire. I'm not sure if it's planes or individual polys. considering the overhead with transparency it might be smarter to go with just polys, but that is a very specific question to the engine and the scope of the game. It would probably require a bit of testing.
Pretty much a wii-u friendly version of this:
@Obscura I'd just imagine that if all the grass was done just with cards it would be a lot more noticeable since so many things in the BoTW world affects it. At the very least, I couldn't wrap my head around fire particles on planes as I think it would be a bit hard making it seem like it's burning the blade of grass? :V
I haven't touched exterior environments at all though, so my knowledge of foliage and stuff is extremely limited.