Any chance...?


Pathfinder Online

Goblin Squad Member

Is there any chance of obsidian entertainment helping in any capacity art/graphics/mechanics/consulting with Pathfinder Online? What is the current road map for graphical immersion improvement? Will unity always be enough?

Goblin Squad Member

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1) No.
2) Eventually.
3) Probably.


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Id say never. Id rather have the gameplay immersion over visuals any day.

Goblin Squad Member

If they spend their limited development dollars on depth of gameplay rather than eye-candy, I'll be happy, as that's what's immersive for me. If they happen to win the lottery, then they can do both :-).

Goblin Squad Member

Well this game was made by just 4 people with the exact same development tool unity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPzaymDnDJQ

Goblin Squad Member

Yeah, but that isn't an MMO. Unity is a powerful engine, yes. But comparing these two games is like comparing apples to oranges. There are very, very different technical concerns in play, even graphically.

Goblin Squad Member

I don't think the comparison is that unfair. The server side stuff yeah obviously and the way you keep track of objects and collisions. I don't see why PO should look any worse on the client end. If there are good excuses id like the details.

Goblin Squad Member

One big, easy one: In a single player game, as a developer, you have pretty good control over the amount of resources (game world objects, with textures etc) that need to be rendered. Thus, you can finely tune your graphics to within those limits.

PFO needs to be able to render hundreds (thousands, ideally) of characters at a time, in addition to any NPCs, trees, grass, etc. There is a lot of variance in the client rendering workload. This means there needs to be a lot of breathing room between the amount of resource the environment takes up, and the physical limitations of your PC.

Basically, the game has to be less pretty, because there will be times when it needs to display a very large number of things.

They also have an interest in keeping the minimum specs down, to make the game accessible. We already have a few people buying new PCs to run this thing.

This is the tip of the iceberg, but hopefully that illuminates to you the KIND of problems inherent. Single player games always looks better than MMOs. There are reasons for that.

Goblin Squad Member

I take your point about rendering player characters but that is the only exception you mention. So the only variance is local players. You elude to many more problems please "illuminate" them.

This is a unity made mmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13lkNv0zOVo excuses?

Goblin Squad Member

Also without a huge budget going for really high end graphics can kill a game.

Basically even if you provide a "fastest" setting for older PCs masses of people with low end slightly older computers ( " my mum said the man sold us a gaming laptop and its only a year old" ) will still wind it up to max and then deluge the game forums with negative complaints when the game crashes and does unpleasant stuff.

You need a big budget to get high end graphics to fail gracefully on older hardware. Even then some people will complain.

Goblin Squad Member

KoTC Edam Neadenil wrote:

Also without a huge budget going for really high end graphics can kill a game.

Basically even if you provide a "fastest" setting for older PCs masses of people with low end slightly older computers ( " my mum said the man sold us a gaming laptop and its only a year old" ) will still wind it up to max and then deluge the game forums with negative complaints when the game crashes and does unpleasant stuff.

You need a big budget to get high end graphics to fail gracefully on older hardware. Even then some people will complain.

I highly doubt any games made with unity went even close to two million considering the suite itself costs between 2000-6000$. More people will complain that it looks like a bad 10 year old game.

Goblin Squad Member

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Pyronous Rath wrote:

You elude to many more problems please "illuminate" them.

This is a unity made mmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13lkNv0zOVo excuses?

I am not here for your education, and your tone is irritating. Go and do some independent learning.

Goblin Squad Member

Kadere wrote:
Pyronous Rath wrote:

You elude to many more problems please "illuminate" them.

This is a unity made mmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13lkNv0zOVo excuses?

I am not here for your education, and your tone is irritating. Go and do some independent learning.

In other words you had one point and tried to make it look like many. Well thank you for the one point regarding player rendering.

Goblin Squad Member

You're welcome.

Goblin Squad Member

The player's in a local area rendering issue is somthing all mmo's deal with. I don't hate the way all of pfo looks right now. That being said I think GW should shoot for at the least the scenery to be on par with the forest game made with unity I linked above. When I walk deeper into the woods it should feel eerie. This feeling of dread should deepen when I notice that mixed among the trees here are strange ruins from a forgotten era. I certainly don't expect this in alpha but I intend to push for it and I don't always push gently. Hell Im saying there should be a vision of using unity to it's maximum potential. I will be one of the people who needs to buy a new machine to run this game decently in it's current state. Well welcome to PC gaming where a new machine is mandatory every 2-5 years.

Goblin Squad Member

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Pyronous Rath wrote:
The player's in a local area rendering issue is somthing all mmo's deal with. I don't hate the way all of pfo looks right now. That being said I think GW should shoot for at the least the scenery to be on par with the forest game made with unity I linked above. When I walk deeper into the woods it should feel eerie. This feeling of dread should deepen when I notice that mixed among the trees here are strange ruins from a forgotten era. I certainly don't expect this in alpha but I intend to push for it and I don't always push gently. Hell Im saying there should be a vision of using unity to it's maximum potential. I will be one of the people who needs to buy a new machine to run this game decently in it's current state. Well welcome to PC gaming where a new machine is mandatory every 2-5 years.

The graphics are basic, nowhere near what the completion has, and this is deliberate based on a time/resource/feature cost-benefit analysis made by the GW team.

There are quite a few threads that go into detail on this, including one very recently. Perhaps take a look there for more info if you haven't already? :)

Goblin Squad Member

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I am pretty sure that a GW dev could shoot a lot of holes in comparing the footage you (are allowed to) see in a carefully prepared video, that is used for PR purposes and undoubtedly is showing the strongest side of their game that they can show, to the experience of actually *walking and playing* in an alpha build of a real game that has Network functionality and probably about 10x more work on future mechanics in the pipeline already, then a "Rust meets DayZ" promo on youtube.

I can see where you are coming from though, and I am positive that your "comparison" post will not be the last one we will see.

I agree with you that the game still needs a ton of work in the "looking goooood!" department. Animations aside (which also need a lot of work) I would love to see more variation in the landscape; ridges, cliffs (real ones), rockfaces, real water, muddy pools, a large rotting treetrunk that fell down, and so forth. Also, windmills, a dingy moored at a small pier, an old shack, an abandoned harrow, a small NPC village with a few NPC's even(farmers) just for colour. Lots of work, but hopefully we will see this in the future.

The monster/bandit camps themselves actually have some nice variation, and look good, but the way they are so abundantly and haphazardly scattered across the landscape kinda ruins it. Also because of the complete lack of other props that could somehow explain their presence.

I personally always figured that these Middleware packages like Unity came with much more sophisticated tools that could pretty much create a somewhat varied and interesting raw landscape by itself, but I guess not. Still looks like you start with a green canvas, and have to start pulling vectors up and down, and put in every little detail yourself.

I realize that the environment in a game like GW2 is completely handcrafted (much, much smaller play-area too), and a 80 million budget but I figured there was some middle road here, with more automation.

Goblin Squad Member

Pathfinder is a relatively small budget game with a particular look and feel that is designed to appeal to the intersection of several subsets of people that are looking for a mix of things, mostly related to having a permanent affect on their surroundings. It isn't intended to be everything for everyone. Most of us would like nice graphics, but not at the expense of immersive game-play, and at the moment Goblinworks doesn't have the capacity to invest in richer graphics. It has to appeal to it's core audience and give them something that they are willing to pay for month after month. At some point, graphics will be more important, but that day is not yet.

Goblin Squad Member

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Kadere's point is the biggest one, rendering capabilities when you can't control exactly what will appear on a screen at any given time is the biggest limitation for MMO graphics. One character is so much rendering, one character casting a spell with particle effects is more rendering, adding in various environmental lighting effects or terrain detail is more rendering and now add a horde of 100 players creating those particle effects and the rendering crawls to a halt. I have a fairly strong machine and something like a Guild Wars 2 open world Dragon fight with 50+ people would kill my frame-rate if I didn't drop the settings to low and zoom in my point of view to limit excess.

Are there tricks to mess with where your actual collapse point is? Sure, but they are time consuming, custom, complicated, and can have game-play ramifications. The work you do to save some graphics rendering could end up costing you in network communications, introducing the 'lag' you were trying to avoid. All to get some pretty pixels that don't add much to the game-play itself.

Even using your 2nd video example, that's a single person running around in a field. That could be one character or particle effect from becoming a slideshow. It's a promo video that could be on a custom dev machine with a ridiculous amount of power behind it (most development is done on over powered machines so you can optimize later). That is by no means a demonstration of a playable MMO.

The other big problem is pretty stuff takes a lot of time to create, most big scale high graphic games spend huge portions of their budgets just on developing their art and terrain.

Word of warning stop making repeating threads in an attempt to push your viewpoint, you will start getting flagged if you continue to do so, keep it to one thread.

Goblin Squad Member

As I have said in other, similar, threads- I would much rather have an immersive game with great gameplay than flashy graphics. My sense is that most people are here for the gameplay potential, not pretty graphics. If the gameplay is good, I can make do with VGA graphics circa 1990.

Goblin Squad Member

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I started MMOs with Legends of Future Past, an all-text MUD, back in the day. There are still times I miss all the graphics being in my imagination...and get off my lawn!

Goblin Squad Member

Sorry Grampa Jazz!

Goblinworks Executive Founder

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The biggest factor is volume of art. There are over a thousand permutations of PC models (every plus of every armor, times two genders, times three races). There are several different enemy types, with several permutations each, and there needs to be a lot more.

Quantity has a quality of its own.

Goblin Squad Member

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DeciusBrutus wrote:
Quantity has a quality of its own.

Excellent comment.

PFO has a depth and richness to which a lot of us are looking forward.

Goblin Squad Member

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Just ensure networking and performance work and then gameplay and then art.

Goblin Squad Member

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Pyronous Rath wrote:
This is a unity made mmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13lkNv0zOVo excuses?

I'd say that PFO looks capable of producing a world and characters that look like that. Now PFO has a world that is HUGE and had to be produced quickly, it also needs to be able to expand when population dictates, rather than when the devs have finished crafting new areas. Makes sense we don't get hand crafted environments such as in that video.

Detail levels on the character looks not very far from what we get on armour in PFO.

I actually like that video example and think that PFO can reach that level and is on the way to doing so, with the exception that there will never be enough time to handcraft environments to a similar degree. (except maybe Emerald Spire, NPC settlements and such "unique" locations). The wilds can have certain hand-crafted modules that appear in several zones but I don't think procedural generation can produce such a nice result.

All in all, some more time spent on lighting, textures, models, animations etc. and we are pretty much there.


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I'm going to be the butt here and say that, yes, PFO looks like a 10-year-old game, and yet it STRAINS new systems. Even high-end NEW gaming computers are getting 35-40 FPS in-town and mid-range new gaming computers are getting around 25-30 FPS in town.

The game should either look better for the resources it takes, or run better for how simplistic and unfinished it looks. Something's wrong here with the looks/performance ratio. A game that looks like a new version of DAoC shouldn't max out video cards or take up 3 GB of RAM. I'm hoping it's just a complete lack of optimization due to time constraints and not a sign of something really wrong with how the game core is written.

Goblin Squad Member

I was consistently getting 40-80 fps on both of two windows logged in on the same machine in town on Sunday. I have a very good system, but spent less an 1100 Cdn on it in January. It's a GTX 660, hardly High-end, debatably new.

They have also said, repeatedly, that the graphics still need optimizing. It is alpha and graphics are not the highest priority.

Goblin Squad Member

Duffy wrote:

Kadere's point is the biggest one, rendering capabilities when you can't control exactly what will appear on a screen at any given time is the biggest limitation for MMO graphics. One character is so much rendering, one character casting a spell with particle effects is more rendering, adding in various environmental lighting effects or terrain detail is more rendering and now add a horde of 100 players creating those particle effects and the rendering crawls to a halt. I have a fairly strong machine and something like a Guild Wars 2 open world Dragon fight with 50+ people would kill my frame-rate if I didn't drop the settings to low and zoom in my point of view to limit excess.

Are there tricks to mess with where your actual collapse point is? Sure, but they are time consuming, custom, complicated, and can have game-play ramifications. The work you do to save some graphics rendering could end up costing you in network communications, introducing the 'lag' you were trying to avoid. All to get some pretty pixels that don't add much to the game-play itself.

Even using your 2nd video example, that's a single person running around in a field. That could be one character or particle effect from becoming a slideshow. It's a promo video that could be on a custom dev machine with a ridiculous amount of power behind it (most development is done on over powered machines so you can optimize later). That is by no means a demonstration of a playable MMO.

The other big problem is pretty stuff takes a lot of time to create, most big scale high graphic games spend huge portions of their budgets just on developing their art and terrain.

Word of warning stop making repeating threads in an attempt to push your viewpoint, you will start getting flagged if you continue to do so, keep it to one thread.

Scroll up this thread started with talk about obsidian it then diverged to a point where i could not resist posting the vid from the other thread. The topics were diffrent and then the video became relevant to the discussion.

Goblin Squad Member

Without a good game, the best visuals in the world would at best be museum pieces. I support attending to the game systems. Let improved visuals follow when ready. Vice-versa is putting the cart before the horse.

Aside from interface tools the game appearance does everything necessary. Upgrades can happen later.

Goblin Squad Member

Being wrote:

Without a good game, the best visuals in the world would at best be museum pieces. I support attending to the game systems. Let improved visuals follow when ready. Vice-versa is putting the cart before the horse.

Aside from interface tools the game appearance does everything necessary. Upgrades can happen later.

Thats perfectly reasonable. I just want to be assured it will happen.

Goblin Squad Member

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We have been assured by Ryan in writing on this forum somewhere that we can look forward to AAA quality visuals eventually. They're good enough to work with right now, and some elements are rather nice anyway.

Goblin Squad Member

Then cool.

Goblin Squad Member

Here are some very interesting features in an mmo suite built for unity. Note the building system and beautiful terrains. For anyone interested http://www.atavismonline.com/technology/video-demonstrations

Goblin Squad Member

Pyronous Rath wrote:
Here are some very interesting features in an mmo suite built for unity. Note the building system and beautiful terrains. For anyone interested http://www.atavismonline.com/technology/video-demonstrations

Can you please format your links? It is very hard to copy and paste to new web page using a smartphone or tablet, thanks! :)

(Formatting info is below the "submit" button)

Goblin Squad Member

Pyronous Rath wrote:
Here are some very interesting features in an mmo suite built for unity. Note the building system and beautiful terrains. For anyone interested http://www.atavismonline.com/technology/video-demonstrations/

Goblin Squad Member

Pyronous Rath wrote:
Duffy wrote:
Kadere's point is the biggest one, rendering capabilities -snip-
Scroll up this thread started with talk about obsidian it then diverged to a point where i could not resist posting the vid from the other thread. The topics were diffrent and then the video...

Both your threads are ultimately about graphics fidelity and showed your distaste for the current state of the graphics. It's just a word of warning, no one is going care that the root statement was different when they start flagging you. Just that you kept making similarly themed threads and were dismissive and borderline hostile to anyone who disagreed with you.

Goblin Squad Member

Duffy wrote:
Pyronous Rath wrote:
Duffy wrote:
Kadere's point is the biggest one, rendering capabilities -snip-
Scroll up this thread started with talk about obsidian it then diverged to a point where i could not resist posting the vid from the other thread. The topics were diffrent and then the video...
Both your threads are ultimately about graphics fidelity and showed your distaste for the current state of the graphics. It's just a word of warning, no one is going care that the root statement was different when they start flagging you. Just that you kept making similarly themed threads and were dismissive and borderline hostile to anyone who disagreed with you.

I was not dismissive of the one person who made a point. I agreed with the point actually. I just clarified that it was a single point not many. I also agreed with a few of the posts. The first borderline hostile words in this thread were "I am not here for your education, and your tone is irritating. Go and do some independent learning." If you are worried about me being flagged and not suggesting I be flagged then it would be way better to just pm me and say dude people are gunna flag you chill with the whatever.


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Pyronous, you've done nothing wrong here and gotten a small few quite hostile responses anyway. There are a lot of extreme hardcore fans that dominate this forum right now and while most of them are courteous, a few of them get very hostile towards anyone who points out flaws or even suggestions about how to improve PFO.

Goblin Squad Member

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I think most of us are quite aware of the flaws, but some are less tolerant of rudeness and others of us are focused on the priorities of 'minimum viability'. Some of us are more blunt than others, but I think you well know that this forum is a painting of paradise compared to the CoD or MW:O forums.

Understand we have been wrestling with prioritization for awhile now, and some arguments we know by rote.


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I understand that fully, but I don't believe that Pyronous has been rude in the 2 threads I've seen of his. His issues of interest may not be what the community thinks are currently high-priority, but I also don't see Pyronous as having pushed them as such. Most of his questions have been asking about eventual capabilities and such.

Goblin Squad Member

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It is our responsibility to be welcoming to new folks. Especially if they're coming from other gaming forums where the culture is not as civil, it is our responsibility to gently encourage them to soften their language.

I didn't notice anything wrong with what Pyronous Rath posted, and encourage everyone to move on to discussing the content of his posts rather than the tenor of them.


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Thank you Nihimon.

I've posted my thoughts on the content. I'm happy to hear that the graphics CAN be improved and am relieved to see what Pyronous posted showing the capabilities of the engine. I'm concerned not so much with the bare state of the graphics, but that graphics at such a bare state are so resource intensive. The graphic demands of this game are currently on par with a newly released AAA FPS, and yet look like a game that should run on a 5-year-old computer. I don't mind the look, but I'm very puzzled as to why these basic graphics are so resource intensive.

I think a lot of EE subscribers are going to be very puzzled as to why such simplistic graphics are running so poorly on their older systems, and when they are forced into upgrading their computers to run the game smoothly they're going to wonder why such simplistic graphics required them to spend money upgrading.

Goblin Squad Member

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Leithlen wrote:
... I'm very puzzled as to why these basic graphics are so resource intensive.

Ultimately, I think the answer is simply that the Gobinworks team hasn't had enough time to polish and optimize them. Right now, Mike Hines has an air mattress in his office so he can spend every waking moment working on fleshing out the map before Early Enrollment. They just don't have the manpower to polish and optimize the animations in parallel with that effort.

I have no doubt that a great many players will look at the state of PFO when Early Enrollment begins and decide it's not for them. I know a number of my friends have already made that decision. As much as some folks might want it to be, though, Early Enrollment is not Release. It's an unfinished game, and that's inevitably going to show.

The folks who come in at Early Enrollment should be prepared for that.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
I didn't notice anything wrong with what Pyronous Rath posted, and encourage everyone to move on to discussing the content of his posts rather than the tenor of them.

In hindsight, I was definitely reacting to the tone of the posts (mixed with my own fatigue on the subject of graphics) rather than the content itself. I viewed the posts of accusatory of GW ('excuses' is a loaded word in my headspace), which I don't react well to. Apologies.

Goblin Squad Member

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Kadere wrote:
Nihimon wrote:
I didn't notice anything wrong with what Pyronous Rath posted, and encourage everyone to move on to discussing the content of his posts rather than the tenor of them.
In hindsight, I was definitely reacting to the tone of the posts (mixed with my own fatigue on the subject of graphics) rather than the content itself. I viewed the posts of accusatory of GW ('excuses' is a loaded word in my headspace), which I don't react well to. Apologies.

I could have worded things better as well quoting your use of the term Illustrates was counter productive on my part so I apolagise as well

Goblin Squad Member

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This is a productive, good hearted group. I am truly honored to dwell in your company and only wish we were where I might buy a round of your favorite beverage.

Goblin Squad Member

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Being wrote:
This is a productive, good hearted group. I am truly honored to dwell in your company and only wish we were where I might buy a round of your favorite beverage.

If you can manage to be in Seattle over Memorial Day weekend next year for PaizoCon, I know a good brew pub :)

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
Leithlen wrote:
... I'm very puzzled as to why these basic graphics are so resource intensive.

Ultimately, I think the answer is simply that the Gobinworks team hasn't had enough time to polish and optimize them. Right now, Mike Hines has an air mattress in his office so he can spend every waking moment working on fleshing out the map before Early Enrollment. They just don't have the manpower to polish and optimize the animations in parallel with that effort.

I have no doubt that a great many players will look at the state of PFO when Early Enrollment begins and decide it's not for them. I know a number of my friends have already made that decision. As much as some folks might want it to be, though, Early Enrollment is not Release. It's an unfinished game, and that's inevitably going to show.

The folks who come in at Early Enrollment should be prepared for that.

Right on the money.


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I am new but can add a comment or two about graphics and PFO, although what i've seen so far is not bad, it's far from optimized.

That being said the unity engine can support a lot, for instance I'm right now playing another unity web game called ascent - the space game www.thespacegame.com for those interested. It supports 270 BILLION worlds that are generated within the engine. You can land on them, colonize them, put buildings and structures on them inside the domes and so on. 1 deed is 100sq km, 14000 domes fit inside one deed, the planets are generated to scale, from massive gas giants you can skim to rocky planets/moons you can land on and EVA. Enough about that game back to graphics in general.

Optimization-wise, although I'm not in yet, there are a number of things that can be done and hinder a game.

1. model triangle counts- In general viewable drawable terrain runs at about 1 million triangles on a card for most 3d games.

2. a typical human model runs anywhere from 2000-4000 triangles. a face (detail) can run from 500-1500 triangles. A lot has to do with the level of detail which i'll go into later.

3. Optimization of weapons, armor, smaller items- 100-200 triangles per item. So stuff like weapons and shield which add to your character at a hitch point on the model.

4. Background crap-wells, house, stable, cave (outside texture for an instance dungeon zone), barrel, blacksmith shop, anvil, all of these items have thousands of triangles for a viewable distance probably almost another million triangles.

5. Quadrilaterals-this is a big no no in game design where you have mostly models with triangles, sometimes a modeller makes a mistake and puts a connection point somewhere else that turns it into a 4 sided object. these hurt the graphics cards since they try to draw twice over the object in the graphics card and conflict between the 3 sided triangle and the rest of the model where 4 sides intersect.

6. Texture loads-you have the base model, you've got the textures for weapons and armor. These can be optimized as well as the shading and light sources that go along wit hthe textures, the type of textures (bump mapping etc to make it look 3d) all of this is done in the cgl shader writing the graphics code. This is likely not optimized yet. If you've ever sat an spun in a circle looking at an area and see your video card start massively humming/spiking and your FPS drop suddenly this is likely a result of a bad model in a draw scene.

and lastly

7. Level of detail, this is set in the graphics code as well. How far away do i tell the system to draw a model, the terrain, the tree, the building and what level of detail do i need to draw it so it looks like a model from the characters perspective.

at 1km that tree is a flat 2d plane with a tree texture painted on it and the size of a dot on a typewriter. at 1/2 km it maybe 2 intersecting planes and the size of a thimble. at 1/4km it maybe 3 planes or even 100 triangles (this is where u switch them) a lumpy 3d mass with a texture painted on it. At 1/8 its 500 triangles, at 100 ft its 1000 triangles, at 50 ft 2000 triangles, at 10 feet 5000 triangles. So you see what the level of detail is set to matters greatly. This is where you hear that dev term LOD and how its set up.

anyway, that's my 2 cents, i think they look ok so far, they could stand some improvement, i'm sure it'll get there.

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