Black & White 2 - Renders and rhetoric
Trees. The new grass, which was the "new trees" anyway...
Graphics obsessives (whores?) go through rather cute little phases, something that (most of) SPOnG's staff take great lengths to avoid. It used to be tress. Tress were the big thing. Then it went to reflections. Reflections were very important. Remember Ridge Racer V? It was rubbish. Know why? Because the cars had rubbish reflections. Like, when you drove under a bridge, the bridge didn't show up properly. Grass has recently been under the spotlight too. Know that new Zelda game? It's rubbish. Know why? Well in some of the videos, the grass looks a bit rubbish. Can you imagine...?
Trees, it would appear, have come back en vogue with Lionhead Studios making something of a song and dance about the trees in the upcoming Black and White 2. Here's programmer Matthew Hanlon to explain more:
Astounding.
Trees, it would appear, have come back en vogue with Lionhead Studios making something of a song and dance about the trees in the upcoming Black and White 2. Here's programmer Matthew Hanlon to explain more:
Forests are just one of the many background simulations that make up the world of Black & White 2; we wanted the simulation to act like you’d expect a real forest to. Trees in the forest are split into those which are still growing and fully grown mature trees. The mature trees drop seeds which, under the right conditions, sprout into saplings, so the forest will naturally expand and produce new trees. If, for example, you pull all the trees out of the centre of a forest, over time new trees will grow into the space filling in the hole.
Our foresters have become a bit more eco-aware in B&W2; when looking for a tree to cut down they’ll favour the mature trees over those that are still growing – allowing the forest to sustain itself. The larger trees mean more wood resource for you, and with the resource miracles gone, you need those trees.
One of the new concepts introduced to BW2 is fertility. The ground on a land ranges from ultra-fertile to totally unfertile barren land where nothing will grow. Fertility is incorporated into our forest simulation with the fertility of the land affecting the growth rate or the saplings, the more fertile it is the faster they’ll grow – seeds which fall on infertile land don’t produce saplings. Fertility affects other things in the game, but I’m not going to tell you about them here.
Our 3D coders and artists have done a fantastic job with the tree models, like the rest of the world tree change to reflect the alignment of the player. Additionally they’ve developed a technique to model a tree’s growth, with the amount of foliage on the tree changing with its age. All adding to the sense of a real forest, and to think before starting work here, I would have never even considered how a forest works…
Our foresters have become a bit more eco-aware in B&W2; when looking for a tree to cut down they’ll favour the mature trees over those that are still growing – allowing the forest to sustain itself. The larger trees mean more wood resource for you, and with the resource miracles gone, you need those trees.
One of the new concepts introduced to BW2 is fertility. The ground on a land ranges from ultra-fertile to totally unfertile barren land where nothing will grow. Fertility is incorporated into our forest simulation with the fertility of the land affecting the growth rate or the saplings, the more fertile it is the faster they’ll grow – seeds which fall on infertile land don’t produce saplings. Fertility affects other things in the game, but I’m not going to tell you about them here.
Our 3D coders and artists have done a fantastic job with the tree models, like the rest of the world tree change to reflect the alignment of the player. Additionally they’ve developed a technique to model a tree’s growth, with the amount of foliage on the tree changing with its age. All adding to the sense of a real forest, and to think before starting work here, I would have never even considered how a forest works…
Astounding.
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Comments
config 11 Jul 2005 09:11
1/6
Those trees still look like cut-out-and-build cereal box trees. I'll bet if you look on the under-side the "leaves" are grey and have letters A through N printed on them.
Complete unwiped arse.
It'll ruin the game. Pah.
Complete unwiped arse.
It'll ruin the game. Pah.
Coxy 11 Jul 2005 15:50
2/6
Yeah, I agree trees in games do tend to look like cardboard, the main features/protagonists in games (be it cars, people etc) tend to get better whereas the background images go unnoticed, I think one day it would be nice to have proper 3d trees with falling leaves and everything.
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Joji 12 Jul 2005 15:48
3/6
True backgrounds have been left on the back burner for ages now. I suppose it's about the time developers have extra, to do things, but that will change with time.
I'm no graphics monkey as much as I appreciate them (being an artist myself) but you have to be very passionate to stop other gamers and talk to them about background trees.
This is one of the reasons I love japanese 2D games. because they have mastered the art of creating backgrounds that, though they might not sway in the virtual wind like 3d vesions, look ever more lush besides.
Proper 3D backgrounds will have their day soon.
I'm no graphics monkey as much as I appreciate them (being an artist myself) but you have to be very passionate to stop other gamers and talk to them about background trees.
This is one of the reasons I love japanese 2D games. because they have mastered the art of creating backgrounds that, though they might not sway in the virtual wind like 3d vesions, look ever more lush besides.
Proper 3D backgrounds will have their day soon.
Joji 12 Jul 2005 16:42
4/6
Adding to that last post I'd like to say this. I reckon the next thing many will try to make better is in games is faces of charcaters with proper facial expressions depending on their actions, so you can connect with them more.
With anime/manga styled characters you get this a little easier to excute but when added to a game such as a conversation between two characters it has much more feeling to it.
When playing games such as Tekken I'd like my character to smile we glee when he's kickin arse. When I can see (and hear) that he is happy I'll respond to that information which makes the gaming moments much better. In turn you'd be able to tell a characters mood much better because at the moment many characters kind of have pretty blank slate faces (only smiling or showing any feeling in cutscenes but not really in real time gaming). (You, can't even see the Masterchief's but his helmet gives me that same impression)
So do the faces and body language, worry about the plant life later.
With anime/manga styled characters you get this a little easier to excute but when added to a game such as a conversation between two characters it has much more feeling to it.
When playing games such as Tekken I'd like my character to smile we glee when he's kickin arse. When I can see (and hear) that he is happy I'll respond to that information which makes the gaming moments much better. In turn you'd be able to tell a characters mood much better because at the moment many characters kind of have pretty blank slate faces (only smiling or showing any feeling in cutscenes but not really in real time gaming). (You, can't even see the Masterchief's but his helmet gives me that same impression)
So do the faces and body language, worry about the plant life later.
TwoADay 12 Jul 2005 19:25
5/6
Interesting comments Joji. I totally disagee though. Too often in games today, I feel, that too much time has been put on the characters rather than the backgrounds / environments. It's sort of strange to see ultra-realistic people/cars/robots/whatever running around in obviously less-detailed environments.
sports games, to me, are the biggest culprit. I know it doesn't detract from the gameplay, but if there is a crowd in the stadium or along the race track, try to make it appear realistic, rather than those carboard people that many still use.
sports games, to me, are the biggest culprit. I know it doesn't detract from the gameplay, but if there is a crowd in the stadium or along the race track, try to make it appear realistic, rather than those carboard people that many still use.
Greg2k 13 Jul 2005 10:48
6/6
But then think another way. How many frames per second would you be willing to sacrifice in order to make the crowd more realistic? Even the PS3 wouldn't have enough muscle to make a fully 3d crowd, not even with Half Life 1 poly counts, without dramatically reducing the framerate.