Leaves and trees

[El Dombo]

Has anyone noticed that in the videos like walkthrough 1 when rico gets in the heli and flies to the casino the leaves on the trees look 2d and follow rico ?
I really hope this isn't as annoying as in mercs 2 my biggest problem with that game was if you fly high enough all the trees look 2d

however JC2 can't be as bad as Mercs 2 (I did play it allot)

[JaycTwo]

I noticed this as well.

I think this needs to happen in order to allow smooth streaming of this gigantic world.

Think how in GTA the cities are pixalated and blurred as a method of not being loaded yet.

[JakeD.Parker]

who cares haha its not that bigger deal, and the graphics are still aamzing!

[El Dombo]

And who cares about trees if you can blow them up ?

[matonking]

yeah just knock every tree down

[The Just Cause Exile]

Like I have always said, if the tree looks darned - use napalm!

[jhonny cage]

who cares i'd just run them over with my preordered hover craft that i got from walmart

[MonkeyBanana]

Or the chainsaw launcher <3

[Forsinain42]

The trees are always watching... They were in JC1 and they are now!

[Jerion]

If memory serves, Walkthrough one was a 360 video. The kind of "billboarding" effect that I think you're describing is a way to keep the framerate high while viewing a massive area on less powerful systems. It's a common trick. It's one of the more noticeable side effects of Level of Detail systems but it's also a very useful one.

You will probably see billboarding more on the 360 or PS3 than you will on a high-end PC, and you might potentially see it a little more on the 360 than on the PS3.

[danieltimm]

this isn't goog for the 360

but i think i see in the german video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWdivIUC9T8 that the 2d effect is just so god to see when you fly with a helicopter oder something else ( because you can see more and when all the trees are in 3d the performance isn't very good )
but when you drive a car or just go then most of the trees ar 3d

maybe it will be a bit better when the game has the gold status

[Jerion]

Originally Posted by danieltimm

this isn't goog for the 360

but i think i see in the german video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWdivIUC9T8 that the 2d effect is just so god to see when you fly with a helicopter oder something else ( because you can see more and when all the trees are in 3d the performance isn't very good )
but when you drive a car or just go then most of the trees ar 3d

maybe it will be a bit better when the game has the gold status

It's not anything new for the 360 either. Most games just aren't trying to stream an entire highly detailed island so you just don't notice it often. If it's done well it won't be very noticeable here either.

[MonkeyBanana]

Why exactly does Just Cause 2 streams the whole island and what is the alternative?

[Jerion]

Originally Posted by MonkeyBanana

Why exactly does Just Cause 2 streams the whole island and what is the alternative?

I don't know the technical reasons, but I imagine it's something like this:

Just Cause 2 basically offers you a giant sandbox map where you can potentially view everything at once depending on your perspective. Additionally, because everything is in view at all times, and moreover because you can traverse the landscape very quickly, everything has to be live at all times. That means that to keep things pretty and fast, a complex level of detail system needs to be in place. For a convincing simulation world of Just Cause 2's nature to work, there's no practical alternative.

Level of detail (LoD) systems work to keep the game world looking good at all distances while allowing the game engine to stream a large map very quickly. It works to reduce geometric and texture detail based on distance to the player. One way to quickly lower the detail of vegetation and trees at distance is to "billboard" it, or replace the 3D model with a 2D sprite that always faces the player, once the player is far enough away that the change from 3D to 2D hopefully won't be noticeable. The less powerful the hardware the game is run on, the closer the billboarding distance has to be to keep the game running smoothly.

[MonkeyBanana]

Thanks but why don't other sandbox games have this problem? Or do they also have it?

[Jerion]

Originally Posted by MonkeyBanana

Thanks but why don't other sandbox games have this problem? Or do they also have it?

Many games do this as well but to a lesser extent, simply because they either don't have such a huge landscape in view at all times, or they don't need all sections of the world to be updated constantly. When it comes down to it- they're doing less, wheras Just Cause 2 is doing more on the same hardware. So those games may not need to resort to tricks such as billboarding to maintain a fast framerate.

[Forsinain42]

Originally Posted by MonkeyBanana

Thanks but why don't other sandbox games have this problem? Or do they also have it?

They aren't as big as JC2! Most old sandbox game had a fog to limit draw distance.

[MonkeyBanana]

Oh you mean that so in Just Cause you can just see the whole island always? Cool and I dont really care about the trees because I guess I'll be to busy causing chaos to pay attention to it

[Jerion]

Originally Posted by MonkeyBanana

Oh you mean that so in Just Cause you can just see the whole island always? Cool and I dont really care about the trees because I guess I'll be to busy causing chaos to pay attention to it

How else do you think you can see things like this?

[MonkeyBanana]

Silly me Didnt pay attention to it because the other things were to awesome.

[danieltimm]

and when you stay on the ground will the trees switch from 2d to 3d or are they always 2d?

[MonkeyBanana]

They are 2D depending on what system you play on but when you look at them you want notice they are 2D because they will allways face towards you.

[danieltimm]

ok thats good, but some trees like palms ore a few tree species are always 3d
because they don't rotate

[Jerion]

Originally Posted by danieltimm

and when you stay on the ground will the trees switch from 2d to 3d or are they always 2d?

Ground or air doesn't matter. What does matter is the distance between you and the tree- if it's close to you, it will be 3D.

Like so:

[FilbertFarmer]

Don't worry about the tress...

Just Cause 1 had a simmilar system for drawing distant trees in 2D and it didn't hurt the game in the slightest.

If they can make this a non issue with the old avalanche engine, im sure that this will be even less of a noticable issue in JC2 with it's updated engine!