Flora Generation Constraints

[hhyyrylainen]

@HyperbolicHadron

Should the foliage be completely generated with auto-evo

Yes.

@HyperbolicHadron

or could there be specifically optimized flora generation for specific niches, like grass?

And yes. I think for the goals of Thrive to make sense all foliage has to be generated by auto-evo, but for performance reasons stuff like grass probably needs special rendering handling like maybe just being a texture layer on terrain.

@HyperbolicHadron

Static- Will grass be completely ‘static’ i.e. cannot move on its own. (That doesn’t preclude it blowing in the wind for example) This will enable many useful optimizations and is extremely useful to know for any potential flora to render.

I don’t think we should allow plants that move around in the game. It will be not realistic and it would be a nightmare for performance.

@HyperbolicHadron

Low complexity- Will it be about the lowest complexity possible? Typical grass in games is rendered using just a few (less than five) flat triangles each blade. If a complex 3D surface model is used this might limit how dense the grass can be without tanking the performance. Various optimizations can be made even to a complex model of flora like a tree, but only so much can be done and it is more critical for something with the density of grass.

I think we’ll want to anyway be able to render any foliage as billboards when it is far away from the player. So small dense foliage could stay as billboards even when near the player.