to speedtree or not to speedtree - that is the question

[schweitzerdude]

I am working on a route based on the west coast of North America, somewhere between British Columbia and Northern California. That means trees. My first issue was splines vs objects - by searching the forums using tree+spline+object, I found a posting in Sept 2008 where lewisner recommended splines, but euphod disagreed. There was a later posting on objects which advised 5 whatever used 20 times is better than 10 used 10 times which is better than 100 different used once. I have heard that advice before.

I opened up the route Avery-Drexel which is heavily forested and noticed that tree objects were used, only 7 different, representing 3 conifer species and one general broadleaf. For brush, splines were used, but not highly dense. (As an aside, one of the tree objects: Alaska Cedar 04 is incorrect because Alaska Cedar is not found anywhere in the Rocky Mountains except in one place, near Slocan Lake BC, about 300km north of Lookout Pass)

All the tree objects in Avery-Drexel were speedtrees. Since I need to get trees on my route, less dense than Avery-Drexel, I will use objects and limit the variety, but for best performance should I avoid speedtrees?

 

[Euphod]

Well, if you're basing your decision on MY advice, you may want to reconsider!

Three gentle men who should weigh in here are Dermmy, NeilSmith, and Joosten. I would accept a consensus from them as fact.

 

[schweitzerdude]

thanks Euphod for the quick response

I believe your advice is correct for the simple fact that I have not seen tree splines used on any built-in routes (I did not look at every route however). There are plenty of single specie and multi-specie tree splines built in and on the DLS. We'll see if this thread gets additional opinions.

 

[gawpo50]

Speedtrees

Best if you stay away from tree splines, they can be a major killer of frame rates as I have out on my N&W route in TS12 which are in the process of being replaced. With speedtrees, doesn't matter which creator's content you use, close to track can be reasonably dense with many various ones out to approx 150 meters either side of the track work or where ther is a line of sight from the drivers view point. Then a second level approx 50% less dense beyond 150 meters and out to about 1 km from there drop the density down another 50% and you should achieve a pretty good frame rate in a densely wooded area. This was another trick I learnt after I had uploaded my route and this one is also being fixed. Most of your high detail work should be near the track.

Peter

 

[WindWalkr]

SpeedTree gives the best performance for a given detail level out of all the possibilities.

Splines typically give the worst.

If you're intending to put some serious effort into the route and might one day wish to release the route as either built-in content or an official addon pack, then SpeedTree is the only option that we'll accept. I've no idea if that suits your plans, but it's something to keep in mind.

cheers,

chris

 

[rrfoose]

I'm just starting a route and debating about trees. Definitely no splines though. My decision is between speed trees and the few good sets of JVC trees that still work in TS12. I'd think speed trees would have to kill the frame rate - heck, they move more than the trains do!

 

[WindWalkr]

I'm just starting a route and debating about trees. Definitely no splines though. My decision is between speed trees and the few good sets of JVC trees that still work in TS12. I'd think speed trees would have to kill the frame rate - heck, they move more than the trains do!

SpeedTrees are so named because the codepath in question is designed from the ground up to be as fast as possible for the quality level, taking advantage of billboarding, GPU acceleration and other such tricks. They'll generally lose out in performance to a simple cross-hatch non-alpha tree, but on the flip side they look a lot better up close and have animation. They should beat JVC's static scenery hands down under normal usage.

Being fast doesn't make them completely free- it's still possible to bog down the system by putting too many instances or too many types of tree into the scene- but they'll be faster than any alternative that's remotely comparable in terms of visuals.

chris

 

[mcguirel]

I'm just starting a route and debating about trees. Definitely no splines though. My decision is between speed trees and the few good sets of JVC trees that still work in TS12. I'd think speed trees would have to kill the frame rate - heck, they move more than the trains do!

The motion is not the only issue.
Believe Me, I know the SpeedTree Program better than most.

SpeedTree is the future of Trainz and 3D future.

I suggest you follow the advice of Peter as this is the means to utilize SpeedTree in the best available means.

Best if you stay away from tree splines, they can be a major killer of frame rates as I have out on my N&W route in TS12 which are in the process of being replaced. With speedtrees, doesn't matter which creator's content you use, close to track can be reasonably dense with many various ones out to approx 150 meters either side of the track work or where ther is a line of sight from the drivers view point. Then a second level approx 50% less dense beyond 150 meters and out to about 1 km from there drop the density down another 50% and you should achieve a pretty good frame rate in a densely wooded area. This was another trick I learnt after I had uploaded my route and this one is also being fixed. Most of your high detail work should be near the track.

Peter

As for the N&W, I am processing vastly improved the Built-In SpeedTrees for this route ( some of them ). The Polys counts will average 42% that of current levels among other improvements, billboards at 28%.
A necessary thing that had to be done, and only a day or two of work. No adverse effects will be realized with these updates.

 

[RoysTrainz]

Schweitzerdude take 20 min and look at thread Canadian Rocky Mountains 2011

morning, i see you wonder what trees will do for you in TS12.
Simple a lot if you make the right choice.
Look at the many picts and dense yes very dense (most of all routes in trainz ever) with very good fps.
the pictures if you look careful tell you exactly what to do nearby further and far from a viewpoint in your route. This is not always the driver position of course.
You can make upfront the choice of 4 seasons or go for best fps rate which I advice most people as there computers are not always high end and thus fps is the trainz killer with speedtrees.
Speedtree technology based trees is the logic and "only" good choice for now and the future and a few content creators provide stuff.
Pofig has the most choice and best fps rate but no seasons.
Ultratreez (but this contentcreator quit) has 4 seasons with a few that fit for your region like BC,CA (where my routes are based too).
Backdraw on ultra is closup they look detailed but from the gut feeling to dense in large groups not give that yes feeling, whereas pofig trees have less high detail but overall the best absolutely best view and feel of wow it looks like trees. Only nearby very close-up yes no high detail but acceptable and the best overall acceptance in all other cases. No 4 seasons but that is not the killer at the moment and will be solved as time goes on.
Jankvis JVC has some stuff too but not my liking accept for the grass.
Example birch tree of pofig, jvc and ultra all different but here ultra has the best look and feel. All other trees nearby ultra is good but pofig overall best.
Some people will jump on this but this is my take and experience and experience i have considering my routes rated the heaviest if not heaviest and very good fps rate for Trainz. The Revelstoke Field subdivision will be released this year and the other 4 ( total of approx. 1600 km route length) of following not to far after.
Hope this helps

Roy

 

[davesnow]

Pofig has the most choice and best fps rate but no seasons.

I think (IMHO) Pofig's trees are the best to use. They look way better--- you can use more variety without having groups of trees "disappear"--- and they are good on frame rates. I'm using Pofig's trees in all my future routes.

 

[RoysTrainz]

dave u confirmed what i said

I think (IMHO) Pofig's trees are the best to use. They look way better--- you can use more variety without having groups of trees "disappear"--- and they are good on frame rates. I'm using Pofig's trees in all my future routes.

yes absolutely a variety of 4 to 5 detailed all the way is not a killer at all.
And yes the disappear trick of speedtree happens only with pofig i think it was after 30 up different input same time but how is doing that right?

Roy:wave:

 

[mcguirel]

Detail comes at a cost.
Wonder why I quit .............
Seem pretty ungreatful Joosten of my work and sorry you feel that way.

 

[RoysTrainz]

one picture tells a thousand words

deleted as the picture says ................

 

[airtime]

Hey schweitzerdude, you read my mind...

I was going to ask something very similar to this, about which is better for frame rates, grass splines or a line of the same speedtree at various heights.?.

Plus, it looks like you answered my other question, if you use less items in a route, for example two types of speedtree throughout the route, only one set of houses, will this improve frame rates.?.

Thank you for asking, it saves me creating another post.

Joe Airtime

 

[Dermmy]

...Three gentle men who should weigh in here are Dermmy, NeilSmith, and Joosten. I would accept a consensus from them as fact.

ROFL!!

I hate speedtrees. I hate the way they look, I hate the way they move, I hate the way they sparkle.

But I wouldn't use anything else.

OK - serious bit: The performance gained by using SpeedTrees in a route combined with the performance gains made in the newer versions of Trainz using 'Native' mode makes any alternative completely untenable.

STs in Trainz are already several orders of magnitude better in appearance and animation than the very first built-ins were just a couple of years ago. Give it another couple of years for creators to come to terms with them and they will be as much better again than they are now and by God when STs get that good the Trainz experience will be awesome indeed!

A personal note to the OP - when searching old posts about what works and what doesn't work in Trainz route building ignore almost everything you read. The latest versions of Trainz (10SP3 and 12) have moved the goal posts so far that I honestly believe no-one has yet truly grasped what is possible. I was once the 'lo-poly' king - I had to be just to get trainz to run at all on the 'puter I had when I first got into this thing - but I am utterly amazed on an almost daily basis with just what I can get away with on my current machine (which is still a 5-year-old dinosaur) using 10 SP3 Native Mode.

The only 'old news' which I think is still good advise is avoid splines at all costs. Often there is no alternative, but if there is an object you can use instead, use the object...

Andy

 

[boleyd]

Take a look at Kentucky III on CHECKRAIL's site. For me this is the visual standard of trees. The majority are from Trundra -
http://www.greenery.name/mstsg/mstsgd.htm

Notice the fullness of the vegetation and the subtle coloring. Also, the tree trunks look much better. Visually the best in my opinion. However, the downside is that they are a dead-end. This vegetation requires Compatibility Mode which is no longer offered by Auran:'(. I have TS12 but reverted to TS2010 just to use the Kentucky III route since it looks real.

 

[NSWGR_46Class]

Ok I must be the only person in the trainz world who likes speed trees - ok in surveyor they do sway around a bit but when I am driving or watching a train run through the country side, I never notice the trees over the movement of the train the trees are only in the field of view for such a short time.

There seems to be performace gain in driver by using them and as to the tree not fitting the location I would really not notice or in fact care if the trees are wrong for the location. Its all just a stage to make the trainz look good

 

[airtime]

ROFL!!

The only 'old news' which I think is still good advise is avoid splines at all costs. Often there is no alternative, but if there is an object you can use instead, use the object...

Andy

Thank you Andy for letting me know about splines, I wasn't too sure with them, whether they would cause me problems over frame rates more than speedtrees, luckily enough I've only just started a new route, so the splines can be replaced by grass from the greenery website.

I did notice a bit of blending with the grass splines and the UK catenary quad wires, were the wires would dissapear through the grass, when looking down onto the track from above, using the greenery grass eliminates the dissapearing OHLE wires.

Joe Airtime

 

[rrfoose]

I think (IMHO) Pofig's trees are the best to use. They look way better--- you can use more variety without having groups of trees "disappear"--- and they are good on frame rates. I'm using Pofig's trees in all my future routes.

How does one go about downloading Pofig's speed trees? I've been to TrainzUP and found the vegetation page, but no matter what I click on, I get redirected to other download pages... What's the trick to finding the magical download link for the trees??

 

[Muliebuck]

That is indeed, a very good question, I've read elsewhere, that there was an 'issue' with his 'host' I believe, so the links are temporarily offline, but I don't remember the whole story, perhaps Pofig would do us the honor of replying here?