LODs

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Dude_Person

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Does Mount and Blade have any LODs (Level of Detail), cause as far as i can tell it doesn't. When i look out over a field i get 250FPS, but when i look at a horde of cavalry coming i get 60FPS. the frame rate drop is huge!

For all of those who don't know what LODs are. Every model would have a high quality version, and then progressively lower quality version. When the model is close, its high quality, as it gets further away, it becomes lower quality. It's done in such a way that its not noticable. All modern games use LODs.

Using LODs , when those hordes of enemys are charging at me, I'd probably be getting something closer to 100-150 FPS, instead of 60. Adding LODs would leave alot of head room for other graphical improvements, like grass generation on the ground, etc.
 
I agree. According to this there is something like that already in place. But obvously it needs a bit of work, as i suffer from the same problem. The big thing would be not drawing units behind an obstruction, which he also commented on.
 
I still think polygonal LODs would help performance a lot, since I still get pretty bad FPS loss when looking at distant enemies (and it makes it hard to shoot).
 
For distant immovable polygons -trees, rocks and the like- it might not be such a bad idea to go 2-D, even. I really don't care about trees on the far side of the map where none of us have even set foot, you know?
 
For distant immovable polygons -trees, rocks and the like- it might not be such a bad idea to go 2-D, even. I really don't care about trees on the far side of the map where none of us have even set foot, you know?
Yeah, but trees don't take up hardly any processing power as is. My fps is only a little lower overlooking the entire empty map as it is in a building with one person in it. But units should maybe become 2D sprites way off in the distance. Or perhaps just their fps slayers...errrr....i mean horses.
 
Yes, I'd also like sprites in the background. Even speedtree or Rome Total War uses it.
 
Hmm, yes, and to help, you could look into things such as anti-portals (barriers that stop rendering beyond them, good to place inside hills, so the comp doesn't bother rendering what's on the other side), and a fog effect. Now, the fog thing, may actually help alot on rainy levels and dawn battles, so in the distance, things become masked and eventually don't render (this would also help camoflage the sprite-3d shifts). As for a clear day or clear night: during the day, you could have a heat-blur effect that still helps camoflage the polygonal LODs, and at night, a "fog" effect can easily become a "darkness" effect, where things become dimmer in the distance, untill all you can see is night.
 
A fog effect would be nice in certain cases. Just so long as it was done properly. I hate it when games have it set so that once you get close enough to a unit to see it, it just...pops in out of nowhere. I'm sure there are other games i don't know of that did fog really well, but Morrowind is all that comes to mind. Even Battlefield 2 has a terrible fog effect. But i really like the idea about nighttime fog.
 
Lethandis said:
..., the fog thing, may actually help alot on rainy levels and dawn battles, so in the distance, things become masked and eventually don't render (this would also help camoflage the sprite-3d shifts). As for a clear day or clear night: during the day, you could have a heat-blur effect that still helps camoflage the polygonal LODs, and at night, a "fog" effect can easily become a "darkness" effect, where things become dimmer in the distance, untill all you can see is night.

Good idea with the fog, it's actually amazing that Line of Sight fog actually -improves- FPS rather than decrease it :smile:
I have mentioned fog around cavalry in another thread, those things would add a lot of tension to a battle. (i shiver even thinking about night battles)
 
Yoshiboy said:
there is fog on some levels. I think in the evening or when its misty or possibly when tis raining.

Not in the rain, that's for sure, I've yet to see fog in the game. I've seen rain, but still could see clear as crystal with little streaks on it (the raindrops).

DaLagga said:
A fog effect would be nice in certain cases. Just so long as it was done properly. I hate it when games have it set so that once you get close enough to a unit to see it, it just...pops in out of nowhere.

I'm mostly envisioning a fog effect like the unreal engine uses. Such fog effects have a begin point (where they begin to obscure things, starting normally at 0%) and an end point (where fog obscures 100% and the engine doesn't bother rendering anything past that point). The begin and end points can be adjusted (usually by the Dev, but some game graphics settings let you select fog distance).

The "pop" effect is when they don't bother with the gradual deletion, or set the begin point too close to the end point, so it becomes very hokey looking.

svart said:
Lethandis said:
..., the fog thing, may actually help alot on rainy levels and dawn battles, so in the distance, things become masked and eventually don't render (this would also help camoflage the sprite-3d shifts). As for a clear day or clear night: during the day, you could have a heat-blur effect that still helps camoflage the polygonal LODs, and at night, a "fog" effect can easily become a "darkness" effect, where things become dimmer in the distance, untill all you can see is night.

Good idea with the fog, it's actually amazing that Line of Sight fog actually -improves- FPS rather than decrease it :smile:
I have mentioned fog around cavalry in another thread, those things would add a lot of tension to a battle. (i shiver even thinking about night battles)

Yes, I had thought the reverse until I started actually learning how to do such things. The fog is an algorithm that tells it to not render things and replace it with X color. Thus, easier for the comp to draw what's on screen. One really nice thing about the fog effect is, like I mentioned in my last post. It can also be used for gradual darkness, just coloring the fog black instead of grey.

Oh, and I too would love to see cavalry charging through fog. Even just the sort I was referring to would be awesome. Even better though (and this WOULD decrease, rather than increase performance), would be a low bank of fog, about mid-chest height to a horse, so it broke and swirled around them, almost like ephermal water. I have such a scene described in a plot I have written up, and it is just a powerful image to imagine, especially if you have a muffled hoofbeat sound to it too, give the sound some reverb and chorus (so there's lots of horses) and make it deep in tone (so that you can still hear it at low volume, since low tones are felt more than heard). *shiver* I'd probably hit tab and flee, let my troops handle that fight. :lol:

Edit: I should specify, the second type of fog was just elaboration, I think it would cost too much performance for the visuals that would be gained (I'm a fan of game-play over appearance any day.)
 
Yoshiboy said:
there is fog on some levels. I think in the evening or when its misty or possibly when tis raining.

Well we were talking about fog before 7.000 was released :wink:
(or at least i did)

Lethandis said:
Yes, I had thought the reverse until I started actually learning how to do such things. The fog is an algorithm that tells it to not render things and replace it with X color. Thus, easier for the comp to draw what's on screen. One really nice thing about the fog effect is, like I mentioned in my last post. It can also be used for gradual darkness, just coloring the fog black instead of grey.

I can't wait to see the fog on 0.700, i was sure they wouldn't implement it until after 0.8 or so.
My logic tell me gradual darkness would make it look as if you carry a light source around you, no ?

Lethandis said:
Oh, and I too would love to see cavalry charging through fog. Even just the sort I was referring to would be awesome. Even better though (and this WOULD decrease, rather than increase performance), would be a low bank of fog, about mid-chest height to a horse, so it broke and swirled around them, almost like ephermal water. I have such a scene described in a plot I have written up, and it is just a powerful image to imagine, especially if you have a muffled hoofbeat sound to it too, give the sound some reverb and chorus (so there's lots of horses) and make it deep in tone (so that you can still hear it at low volume, since low tones are felt more than heard). *shiver* I'd probably hit tab and flee, let my troops handle that fight. :lol:

Edit: I should specify, the second type of fog was just elaboration, I think it would cost too much performance for the visuals that would be gained (I'm a fan of game-play over appearance any day.)

nice example with the reverb and cavalry :razz:
and ye heh, fluids were always a pain in the ass. (one of the things i always hated pulling when doing VFX)

I usually favor performance over looks too (if the performance isn't smooth i find it's too hard and not fun to play), good thing games with particles allow you to turn it off (pretty simple program wise too). and for me a cavalry riding dirt/smoke would be a huge boost to the immersion.
so i would risk some performance for a change.

Also smoke particles are still the simplest to calculate special-fx particles, and a lot of games use a textured cross (for polygons connected in the middle) to emulate smoke effect while saving comp time.
There are a lot of other tricks apperently, nowdays i see a lot of nice looking smoke on quake/unreal engine games and removing it barely effects performance.
 
svart, lemme reiterate my fog story here for you to enjoy:

okiN said:
Holy ****, this is what I call sneaky! I was slaughtering a few river pirates in extremely heavy fog, right? So I'm riding away from them, reloading my light crossbow, and suddenly I'm at the edge of this insanely steep, high cliff, about to plunge my insanely expensive spirited charger into certain doom. I managed to gather my wits and pressed Ctrl-R to rear my horse, but that was one close call! I rode up to the cliff after the battle was over and took a screenshot to show you how sudden the plunge was. And it appeared out of nowhere! I love the new weather effects! :grin:

 
Thats the BIGGEST Cliff i've even seen! :shock:

If night battles were implemtented, now what i think would be an awesome effect is dynamic lighting. Flaming arrows would be awesome! :grin: But maybe even from sword sparks, or if you could use a torch as a weapon.

Night battles would have to have some kind of localized light (which could be as simple as the fog around the main character) because otherwise you either won't be able, or everything will be too light. I just think flaming arrows would be sweet!
 
About the fog: Does anyone know if npc characters are hindered by it? I've seen bolts flying out of the fog, but I don't know if they were just "guessing" or were they aiming at me.

Unfortunately to me it seems they aren't.
 
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