The XR_Nature trees pack

[Genghis]

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[Mchief]

Looks:
I like the way you designed the tree itself however there is a big problem with the textures. Besides being washed like Dae mentions, I opened the s2z to check the trunk texture and the tiling is a bit ugly    I also tried to mess with this type of bark but it is a total pain to put it right. I would suggest(if you are using photoshop) to check this  little plugin here: http://www.mehdiplugins.com/english/seamlessborder.htm as it will make your tilling a bit easier next time .
The foliage form is ok but looks too white even for me.

Fps impact:
When i tested the trees on your map i got some bad fps spikes:
This can only be because of missing occluders, leaf animation ,texture and/or bad model.
-I haven't checked for occluders
-your texture sizes are 512x256 which is ok.
-the size f your models are 87kb each which is more than twice the amount I have on any of mine. You will need to reduce the polygons manually(a boring thing trust me) and bring them down to half of what they are now at least . Also make sure you divide your model in meshes based on the materials you use. Currently you have 3 meshes and 2 materials.This means that you apply 1 material on at least 2 separate meshes. Savage doesn't like separate meshes so attaching meshes with the same texture material will improve the fps abit. You can do this by simply going to the editable poly modifier of one of the meshes, press Attach button and  then click on the mesh you want to attach it to (if a message pops up asking if you want to mix materials together, press no as this will make a single mesh with 2 textures and savage doesn't support that).
-the foliage itself is the most complex part of your model but is also the heavier part fps-wise. The leaf animation already has a nasty impact on fps as is, and doing it on too many planes makes it even worse.You will have to take this in consideration when you reduce the polygons, but be careful not to overdo it as you might destroy the looks of the tree. So be careful.

Other suggestions
-Your textures are all 256x512 and by inspecting the UV's they do not require tiling. This means that you should make them either 256x256 or 512x512 to get the most of the details but also means that you can safely remove the t_ prefix from all your willow_barks (which will improve fps again ).
-After you get all the previous things sorted out, you will have to make LODs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_detail

The s2z you provided is messy. This is because you don't know how to make use of the skin file to make variations properly. Please pick one of the tree.models, fix it , put it in a new *.s2z send it to us again so we can just test them in the map editor. If everything works we will show you how to make those skin files.

I'm sorry for being negative and probably confusing, but I don't think they can be used in game in current state. The fps impact is too big on my side (Dae has a big badass vid card and doesn't feel it much). But if you follow the lines you will get the best of best performance-wise of what can be done with the model and also future models you might use/make .

Cheers bro   

[Mohican]

Release of XR 1.0 is being held up by a couple of minor issues, this being one.
Can I please ask that you guys pull all the plugs to get the Tree Pack finished this week?

(P.S: This work is amazing, you guys are showing some proper talent).

[Genghis]

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[Mchief]

i was kinda expecting you to be confused and dont worry about those deadlines because xr will not finished even after release. So please take your time and don't rush.

Regarding the textures you will continue the discussion with dae as I myself dont agree with some of his points (and might end up in argument ). But the way things are now, he is in charge in this area so I will let him do the critics.

As for fps- there really is a big impact- went down to 30-35 and this without any action on the map.
I didn't say reducing the texture size . I said make them have the same values on both height and width and ofc make them with a power of 2. This way you will preserve quality of the texture both vertically and horizontally. Your current textures only do this either vertically or horizontally(256x512 and 512x256). But this was just a suggestion, you cant keep it as is if you want.

The trunk mesh itself doesn't affect the game much, but the crown does because it is animated. If you feel you could make a difference then reduce that one mostly.

By messy I mean that you made a model for each tree, when instead you could have made just one model and make skin files (it has nothing to do with ASP, its your Visual Studio who thinks its part of ASP) to create different variants of the same model but with different textures applied on each mesh.

The flaws are many indeed but you shouldn't give up on this. The tree concept is good.

[Genghis]

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[Daemon]

Textures CAN be rectangular, and SHOULD be where the model proportions deem it as necessary. The s2g file format actually allows for this non-square aspect. More over, converting a rectangular image to .s2g can result in files having such proportions automatically, if the source image is not square.

So there's no need to stretch your textures, or just leave a whole lot of empty space. 128x256 (like the flags), or any similar size is fine.

[Genghis]

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[Daemon]

If you commit to finishing it, i will. It's a lot to teach and your "you cant rely on me" is disheartening.

[Genghis]

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[Mchief]

I have a collision issue with the leaves being bullet proof...
The collision for the trunk works fine and the animation textures etc are all working its just this problem to fix.

Heres the hierachy of objects

_surf0
Scene Root
   _foliage
   foliage
   _trunk
   trunk

Now if i name the foliage to _foliage like the bone it works - bullets penetrate the leaves, however i lose the texture. Heres my export log if this helps ?

Added bone "Scene Root" (index 0) to model (no parent)
-------======= trunk ======-------


Type: Mesh
Details:
    Added bone "_trunk" (index 2) to model (parent: Scene Root)
    Added bone "trunk" (index 1) to model (parent: _trunk)
    Copied 150 vertices
    153 extra vertices created to account for multiple UVs
   
    Mesh has 303 vertices and 292 faces
   


-------======= foliage ======-------


Type: Mesh
Details:
    Added bone "_foliage" (index 4) to model (parent: Scene Root)
    Added bone "foliage" (index 3) to model (parent: _foliage)
    Copied 1288 vertices
   
    Mesh has 1288 vertices and 1656 faces
   


-------======= _surf0 ======-------


Type: Collision Surface
Details:
    Generating surface from a mesh with 12 faces
    Surface contains 6 planes
    Bounds: (-12.630467, -9.494169, 0.438208)  to  (64.846283, 24.470037, 195.543640)
   


******************************************
**********     MODEL SUMMARY    **********
******************************************
   
   
    1591 vertices
    1948 faces
   
    2 meshes
    5 bones
    0 sprites
    1 collision surfaces
    Bounding box: (-40.354141, -105.067596, -10.904999) to (244.831238, 183.652481, 444.769531)
   
    Mesh breakdown:
    2 non-blended / rigid meshes
    0 blended meshes

I dont have much experience with rigging - can someone help 

Delete the skin file for that particular tree and assign textures to meshes using material editor.

You do not require rigging for trees.

[Genghis]

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[Genghis]

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[Tjens]

Becouse I don't have any 3D modelling skills, and I can't make changes on my own I can't give you guys any real critisism, becouse I won't be able to do it any better, but seriously guys, whatsup with your texuring program?


There seems to be an invisible barrier on your colouring window

I thought the whole bleak = realistic thing has waved off by now, but is seems like people still want their games to look like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I just made a picture of the view from my window, seriously, it's a bleak day and It still got more colour in the foilage than most of the pictured models.


Don't mind the Headcrab

Anyway, try to put some colour into your foilaige. You're basicly making an interactive, moving picture with your ingame models, and there is absolutely, definitly no need for more "gritty" objects.



Dont make me dissapoint.

[Daemon]

There's also this version of the foliage which i've made using Mchief's texture as a starting point. He said it's too saturated (i've tried to replicate the original texture - since the task was replacing the old tree back then) and the shape of the foliage texture too circular, which he's right about.

Since when this pic was taken, the model was rearranged by Mchief, so you shouldn't be seeing those weird foliage planes.



Also, found this old screenshot with some willow trees, maybe you could use it as inspiration .