40 replies to this topic

[Drrobmiller]

Slewin

Sounds like your making custom mesh bunkers and splat painting

You need to just lower the terrain within the bunker using setting 2...it’s possible your creating the bunker mesh but not the rough that surrounds it?

Makes it hard to lower the terrain.

And theres a different technique if bunker created within a spline...I e within fairway as opposed to on the rough terrain to the side

You can pm me

Rob

[Dropzone73]

The biggest problem is that when you cover the entire course in meshes the polygon count climbs massively as compared to a terrain/mesh balance. This is because the CF meshes do not LOD at all whereas the Unity terrain has a clever LOD system. 

You are right about that, but I'm quite sure that you haven't tested not to draw the terrain at all.

 

What I'm trying to say is: You'll have to do spline meshes for every hole anyway, right. Then why to draw the terrain under your splines? It's a double workload for your PC without any advantage.

 

Yes, I and we all know, that there are those other terrain areas that are around our meshes and usually are painted with a paint tool because it's not so easy to spline everything with current CF (CF should be improved also in this area). But if you cover those areas with splines that do not have too accurate grid (can be even 3-5 meters), your mesh terrain can be even lighter than original terrrain what comes to polygon count and also all the double drawing is eliminated. And yes, I know that the terrain should be very visely optimized concerning polygon count (pixel error LOD's and so on) but the truth is, it isn't. The one draw call of the whole terrain mesh is so much faster that I could even add almost hundred birds to my Pebble Beach course and FPS is still smooth. With dynamic skies on there comes few little dips but still very good. Check that 4 hole Pebble out Mike and you'll see!

https://drive.google...cJT6EeTTtk/view

 

It's also a shame that one terrain paint can only have one texture and one normal map assigned to it, so using overlay image isn't possible with terrain painting.

 

Splining everything also resolves the problems of physics outside the course area. Cliff is cliff and rough is rough etc.. And no seams between the terrain and mesh anymore. Only this splining should be made easier and the princible of spline being around the other spline should be changed. It should be replaced with some kind of spline's prioritizing order when splines overlap each others or when the other spline is around the other.

 

Also spline mesh height can be then from 0.15 to 0.15 + 0-1 meters and for example bunker's lips can be as high as you want them to be. And never any terrain will be over the meshes. Only if you make very deep bunkers without raising the height of the surrounding mesh, then you'll find your player hoovering over the bunker mesh because invisible terrain is then higher than the bunker mesh. But it's very easy to raise the surrounding mesh from 0 to 1 meter. Quite many advantages in this spline method I think!

[Birdie]

In my project I also try to spline as much as possible. I think my largest spline surrounds 3-4 holes so far. But it's really a tough job not to reach the polygon limit. It needs a lot of smaller inner splines just for the fact of limiting the polygon count of the outer spline. And then you also have to be careful with the blends not to overlap. After several different approaches on my cart paths I now spline them too. But nothing is allowed to touch anything... But it's still great fun. Will see how many holes I can surround with one single spline.

[clubcaptain]

In my project I also try to spline as much as possible. I think my largest spline surrounds 3-4 holes so far. But it's really a tough job not to reach the polygon limit. It needs a lot of smaller inner splines just for the fact of limiting the polygon count of the outer spline. And then you also have to be careful with the blends not to overlap. After several different approaches on my cart paths I now spline them too. But nothing is allowed to touch anything... But it's still great fun. Will see how many holes I can surround with one single spline.

Even on a single hole i can easily draw 40/50 smaller circles to avoid the "too many vertices" problem. I've not tried covering 3 holes with a single spline as I dread to think how much it would have to be broken up. It's a dreary, time wasting excercise.

[bortimus]

The one draw call of the whole terrain mesh is so much faster that I could even add almost hundred birds to my Pebble Beach course and FPS is still smooth. With dynamic skies on there comes few little dips but still very good. Check that 4 hole Pebble out Mike and you'll see!
https://drive.google...cJT6EeTTtk/view

Dropzone, there’s a lot of interesting info in your full post and I agree with many of your points about the shortcomings of CF. I am curious about your performance claim above.

Does your Pebble Beach course have all 18 hole spline meshes in place, or only the 4 playable holes? If all 18, is the quality/density of grid fill such that they would be playable or are the 14 other holes only covered with a low density mesh since they aren’t in play?

If only 4 holes have playable meshes, is it fair to compare the performance of a 4 hole course to that of an 18 hole course?

I would think the extra 14 holes of playable dense spline meshes would make quite a difference.

If all 18 are fully meshed in and could be playable AND you have that much of a performance gain.... hats off sir

[Birdie]

Even on a single hole i can easily draw 40/50 smaller circles to avoid the "too many vertices" problem. I've not tried covering 3 holes with a single spline as I dread to think how much it would have to be broken up. It's a dreary, time wasting excercise.

40-50 "filler" splines on one hole? That really is much. I think these fillers don't have to be very small. I don't need that much of them.
But I'm also sure I will not cover the whole course with only one spline. As much as possible and the rest will be hiding as intelligent or unvisible as possible under bushes or so. Blending two outer splines by lining them as close as possible to each other also didn't work as I hoped. Still visible gaps and so. Don't know if the borders would have to be completely flat for the blend to work perfectly in this case. I hope you understand what I mean, English is not my native language... %)

[DPRoberts]

The most I can encompass with a large spline is usually 3 holes. But those are 3 that run adjacent or 2 long and 1 adjacent. Can't really get 3 in a line.

Once you get a larger spline to work, you'll have a sense of acreage that you can cover without error. You really shouldn't need more than about 5 extra circles to get it to work because fairway, rough, and green splines cover the bulk of the large mesh.

Hopefully, you understand this is a limitation of Unity. I can't blame it on CF.

[slewin]

Merion is basically 2 splines. I usually have 3 types of rough splines:
Rough low mesh
Rough mid mesh
Rough hi mesh
This allows me not to have too many verts per spline and obviously help with performance.
Its almost impossible to terrain paint up to a terrain overlay mesh and make it blend correctly so we always cover the entire terrain.
The only exception to this is oaths and tracks that work well as painted terrain and a good place to break up splines.

[slewin]

Even on a single hole i can easily draw 40/50 smaller circles to avoid the "too many vertices" problem. I've not tried covering 3 holes with a single spline as I dread to think how much it would have to be broken up. It's a dreary, time wasting excercise.

Turn your mesh fill down

[Dropzone73]

Dropzone, there’s a lot of interesting info in your full post and I agree with many of your points about the shortcomings of CF. I am curious about your performance claim above.

Does your Pebble Beach course have all 18 hole spline meshes in place, or only the 4 playable holes? If all 18, is the quality/density of grid fill such that they would be playable or are the 14 other holes only covered with a low density mesh since they aren’t in play?

If only 4 holes have playable meshes, is it fair to compare the performance of a 4 hole course to that of an 18 hole course?

I would think the extra 14 holes of playable dense spline meshes would make quite a difference.

If all 18 are fully meshed in and could be playable AND you have that much of a performance gain.... hats off sir

Something to think about, but here are also few facts.

 

Slewin has quite fully splined all his full 18 hole courses and they still have also a visible terrain with them. And his courses are still playing quite well what comes to FPS.

 

My terrain resolution with Pebble was 2049 witch is the same as with most of the published courses. The resolution of height map is more meaningfull than the size of the terrain. And my outer terrain resolution was 4096 with pixel error 5 or 3. Can't remember which one. So only my outer terrain was heavier than most main terrains in other courses. 

 

The 4096 outer terrain isn't possible if the first terrain (mesh terrain) is too heavy. And remember the 100 birds flying smoothly. So the polygon count in my pebble wasn't any less than in courses with 18 holes if their height map resolution is 2049.

 

I'll release my next 18 hole course done this way with 4097 resolution height map. And it will have 18 * 18  km outer terrain. And believe or not, it will run smoothly as silk . 

[clubcaptain]

Turn your mesh fill down

 

 

Where is mesh fill and what number do you suggest.

[Birdie]

 

Where is mesh fill and what number do you suggest.

I think he means in the PP layers library. I also lowered my grid fill for bunkers for example. I think you have to trial and error what works and what doesn't. I hated to see i can't get my cart paths splines working at 8 meters per point for example.

[slewin]

I think he means in the PP layers library. I also lowered my grid fill for bunkers for example. I think you have to trial and error what works and what doesn't. I hated to see i can't get my cart paths splines working at 8 meters per point for example.

Yes I’m referring to the CF library settings
I think the low res mesh which covers the majority of the course is 4/4 with 8m point spacing.
I then use a higher res spline to encircle each hole and an even higher mesh around trouble spots such as bunkers etc...
It helps to lower the mesh fill for fairways as well if you can get away with it.
It’s all trial and error.

[Drrobmiller]

Slewin,...I take it you figured out the custum bunker technique?

Rob

[clubcaptain]

Yes I’m referring to the CF library settings
I think the low res mesh which covers the majority of the course is 4/4 with 8m point spacing.
I then use a higher res spline to encircle each hole and an even higher mesh around trouble spots such as bunkers etc...
It helps to lower the mesh fill for fairways as well if you can get away with it.
It’s all trial and error.

The reason I didn't spot the gridfill was that the box it's in was completely blank in my custom library. I assume that's not supposed to happen. I've now enetered a number of  "1". Will I have to re-draw the splines.

[Birdie]

The reason I didn't spot the gridfill was that the box it's in was completely blank in my custom library. I assume that's not supposed to happen. I've now enetered a number of "1". Will I have to re-draw the splines.

I would say yes. And even more I have the feeling it's best to actually delete the spline - recalculate - redraw - recalculate. Even when moving verts and then drawing another spline in the area where those verts had been I would first recalculate after moving verts and before drawing a new spline. Or you might get bad wireframe artifacts. It seems terrible and these are just my observations. I now always check carefully in shaded wireframe view what's happening under the skin after I changed splines and so.

But please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe I'm already CF psyched...

[clubcaptain]

On another course in construction, I just got the too many vertices warning despite the course having been compiled and played 100's of times and on the hole that incurred the warning there have been no changes for months. Gridfill was already .5 so it just seems to be a law unto itself. To get rid of the warning I started drawing circles within the outer rough spline but I just ran out of room so couldn't draw any more - gave up.

[Dropzone73]

On another course in construction, I just got the too many vertices warning despite the course having been compiled and played 100's of times and on the hole that incurred the warning there have been no changes for months. Gridfill was already .5 so it just seems to be a law unto itself. To get rid of the warning I started drawing circles within the outer rough spline but I just ran out of room so couldn't draw any more - gave up.

 

Grid fill of 0.5 is good for bunkers and maybe for bunker edges. It's very accurate, probably more accurate than most of the terrains, so use it only in difficult parts of the course. 1-2 meter is good for fairway, green, semirough etc., but it all depends on the variations of the land's surface. Outer splines can have even 5 meters grid fill if it looks good. It varies between different splines. Optimize them and when you uncheck the "Draw" terrain checkbox, the terrain bleeding isn't problem anymore.

 

Learn by trial and error. Don't just draw splines without knowing and understanding the parameters in them!

The values are not given. You decide what's best for your course. If your grid fill is 0.5 in many splines, it's obvious you will run into problems.

[slewin]

Slewin,...I take it you figured out the custum bunker technique?

Rob

Pretty much Rob,
I’ve decided to make my life more complicated and dive into substance designer/painter and experiment a bit.
My current solution involves both turning off terrain draw and turning off the bunker spline mesh Renderer.

[clubcaptain]

Grid fill of 0.5 is good for bunkers and maybe for bunker edges. It's very accurate, probably more accurate than most of the terrains, so use it only in difficult parts of the course. 1-2 meter is good for fairway, green, semirough etc., but it all depends on the variations of the land's surface. Outer splines can have even 5 meters grid fill if it looks good. It varies between different splines. Optimize them and when you uncheck the "Draw" terrain checkbox, the terrain bleeding isn't problem anymore.

 

Learn by trial and error. Don't just draw splines without knowing and understanding the parameters in them!

The values are not given. You decide what's best for your course. If your grid fill is 0.5 in many splines, it's obvious you will run into problems.

Thanks Dropzone73 and it's good to get some specific information around a subject that seems very foggy. I appreciate the comment about trial and error but the problem is having some inkling as to what the trial part is intending to achieve and what the error part translates to. As can be seen by my comments I have been giving these spline issues a go for a while and in practical terms I'm never sure what harm I might be doing to something I've already spent a lot of time on. I don't recall seeing any information on deep dives into meshes and splines. It would be nice to know what gridfill is and how it affects things.