Wow! Amazing content!
- Snipehunter
Hail and well met, Elyrians!
As I'm sure you're all aware by now, it has been our custom of late to offer a glance into the fruits of our development efforts every week. Well, I happened to look around today, and I realized no on had yet posted something shiny. So I grinned wickedly and raced to the forums, knowing that I could share something with you.
Last week's look at the Neran Tournament Armor was pretty great; it was a literal "shiny!" It's going to be hard to follow up on something so well crafted, so majestic...
...but you know what's also majestic?
The mountains.
Is there anything more majestic than a towering mountain? Its craggy peaks, its steep slopes melding into fertile foothills, perfect for Hrothi vineyards. Is there anything not to like about a good mountain? Elyria has many mountains - of many different types as well - but today I thought I'd share with you a glimpse at a biome we haven't discussed much yet: the rocky mountain steppe. It's a biome you will find abutting the proud, majestic mountains that act as homes to the Hrothi.
Even though we're pretty early in the process of preparing this biome, it is already taking shape in some great ways! (We do multiple passes when developing biomes, where we work on the terrain formation algorithms, then the terrain detail materials and textures, then low ground cover, then medium ground cover, then trees and other large cover objects unique to the biome - this biome is very early in that multi-pass process.)
Stay shiny, friends!
Update: There was a request for another screenshot that showed off some of the detail at a distance. Our content team was happy to take a couple shots for me and so here's a great shot of the mountains in the distance:
And here's another shot from actually up the steppe into the mountains proper.
Nice! But.... usually grandiose mountains get their buttes kicked by level of detail and distance culling. Is there a plan to make sure the mountains stay intact at all appropriate ranges?
Pun, it was intended. Because I had to make a typo to say it. Deal with it.
Reese "Legendary Neurotoxin" Holland - COE Reddit Mod - Game Dev, but not on CoE. Talkshow on https://www.twitch.tv/theoryforge on Sundays with the rest of the Theory Forge crew!
Ooooooh.
Countess of Tarnham
County Tarnham, Rhynelands Duchy, Vornair. Luna Server (NA-E)
Woah, Fractal procedural mountains. Haven't seen those since the 1990s.
Edit: I like that they are huge though.
Where are the trees? :(
A cowardly man thinks he will ever live, if warfare he avoids; but old age will give him no peace, though spears may spare him.
Elyrian Ale's brewing water is locally sourced from the purest steppe springs, and is naturally filtered for that refreshing mountain taste. Buy two mugs today - that's why you were blessed with two hands!
(Elyrian Ale would like to remind you not to drink and joust.)
Posted By Neurotoxin at 12:33 PM - Thu Sep 13 2018
Nice! But.... usually grandiose mountains get their buttes kicked by level of detail and distance culling. Is there a plan to make sure the mountains stay intact at all appropriate ranges?
Pun, it was intended. Because I had to make a typo to say it. Deal with it.
One of the nice things about using Unreal as a client engine is that it has some pretty good tools for dealing with this problem. They aren't automatic, and they aren't without cost, but the performance impact is actually pretty lightweight overall. The content team is a little busy, but I'll parley a couple more shots out of them to illustrate what the mountains look like at a distance even without using every tool Unreal gives us. You might be surprised. Even at that level of fining, they're pretty good! :) It might take a little bit, but I'll announce when we add them in the CoE discord, too.
