--- Curtis Olson wrote: > Here are a couple of thoughts for whatever they are worth. > > 1. In the original implementation, the randomness was seeded with some > element from the triangle the objects. The way the random object pattern > was always fixed. This was critical for multi-PC setups so that the exact > same set of random objects appeared on each display. This is pretty > critical for higher end cockpit setups, otherwise they start looking pretty > silly when objects don't cross your monitor boundaries as you fly.
I've "fixed" this by using a hardcoded seed, so everyone will see the same set of random objects at the moment. > 3. One thing I didn't like so much about the original implementation was > that all the objects lived within a small radius around your aircraft. This > was especially apparent with forests. I don't know if this is possible to > fix, but I once had a 1/2 baked idea that seemed hopeful at the time. > > What I would love to see is some sort of statistical distribution where a > few objects exist even at a far distance, and then as you get closer and > closer, more and more of the objects fill in. I was thinking that this > would be more natural looking and you wouldn't notice the spotlight of trees > following beneath you as much. Currently, there is a single LoD node for each random object, which is referenced multiple times within the tile. Creating a different LoD node for each instance of the object would probably have too much of a performance hit. However, I've put together a workaround/hack that gets us most of the way there without costing us too much. For each object, we create (say) 3 LoD nodes with different LoD distances - 1x, 1.5x and 2x. By randomly choosing between the different LoD nodes when we generate the instances (with a distribution favouring the standard LoD value), we get a variety of LoDs. I've had a play, and it looks quite convincing, though as we currently don't have trees, the effect is quite subtle. I've uploaded a new patch which includes this feature, along with some changes that Andy and Csaba suggested on IRC to http://www.nanjika.co.uk/flightgear/random.tar.gz. -Stuart __________________________________________________________ Sent from Yahoo! Mail - a smarter inbox http://uk.mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2005. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
