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1

Off Topic / Day cycles

« on: Apr 10, 13, 09:01:05 AM »

At the moment I rather tend to not implement a day cycle in the game.. But what about you guys? Do you think it's worth the effort?

Would really like to hear your opinions on day cycles (not on the one I did.. rather in general )




I did a little test anyway:

http://youtu.be/h8TeAKckhQs


Still images:

2

Developer Created Tutorials / Various Effects using particles and paths

« on: Apr 05, 13, 11:07:45 AM »

I'm providing here some particle (and others) effects you may use (and/or improve - they are far from perfect) to create your own living world. You can use the textures and models if you want so.

At the moment I got 4 effects ready for the community.

Note: Those aren't Tutorials, but I think they fit well in this section.


Important: You have to retexture the models because fbx doesn't support the Hero Material. I think this should work even though the models and the textures got german names 

Effect 1: Give your spring-style world a busy and humming (you may add sound  ) touch with these restless bees.
Settings for this Particle System

Settings:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FZPS5Iqim4
Assets: Attached as bee.zip
Performance: Still got over 120 fps combined with billboards and dynamic sky.

Effect 2: Rolling through the desert, we sure saw it in different films but how do we call it? (I really have no idea, not even how it is called in my native language)

Just create a path following the surface of your desert heightmap and use the pathfollower as the parent instance of the "rolling" modell (export the model as animated asset).

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwwUDLqU5RA
Assets: Attached as rolling.zip
Performance: low impact on performance on my machine

Effect 3: Waves arriving on the shore

Settings captured on a Picture:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezwPguiJoKk
Assets and particle files (open in Notepad for copy & paste of some settings): Attached as coast.zip
Performance: In this test area I get 120-140 fps)
Step-by-step Tutorial: available

Further information: For this effect, I used 2 particle specs. One for simulating the impact on the shore and one that renders the waves. If you put a ship or another static object in front of the shore, the waves will show up there.

If you have long coastlines, you could work with cloned instances of the emitter, placing them side by side an change the viewable distance settings. I think two or three viewable emitters should still work with a acceptable fps, but I didn't test it.

If someone got a better texture feel free to share it


Effect 4: Waterfall using particles and geometry

Settings captured on a Picture:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vpVlD3Ikv8
Assets and particle files (open in Notepad for copy & paste of some settings): Attached as waterfall.zip
Performance: In this test area I get 145-160 fps)

Further information: Model your own waterfall to get the right look for the specific location. Waterfalls are a bit tricky because they have to look good no matter from where the player looks at it. Use stones to hide the seams around the waterfall (I used some stones that were not supposed for this, but it works more or less).

If someone got a better texture feel free to share it

NEW

Effect 5: Waterfall using particles only

Settings captured on a Picture:
Video: http://youtu.be/Soi6dQ5QAWE
Assets and particle files (open in Notepad for copy & paste of some settings): Waterfall2.zip (Can't attach more files due to size limit)
Performance: In this test area I get 80-95 fps)

Further information: Sometimes a modeled waterfall is just no good. Perhaps you want the player to walk along/through the waterfall, but everytime the player/camera moves through the poly waterfall it's looks just .... :S
For this scenario it's maybe better to use an Waterfall based on particles only.. It's a bit more diffcult until you get it fit to your area and it sure decreasess fps, but like I said.. sometimes you just need it
Replacing the texture with a more transperent one should give you a more realistic look, I didn't dive further into it, because it's not worth the time until it's needed in a production area.

Note: I reused the waterfall_dust particle chain, thought I need to mention it here 


Next effects will be:

Avalanche effect using both path and particle
Waterfall using particle - done
Waves arriving on the shore - more or less done.. Maybe I'll improve it later

Any other effects you'd like to get an approach? Let me know 



PS: I hope HeroEngine and/or 3ds max doesn't mess with the measure of objects and particles (I think Hero Engine shouldn't be a problem but 3ds max.) It's quite possible that you will have to rescale the models.