Hi everyone, I got a question that I finally never found an answers.

How do you guys handle foliage?
I mean, I tryed and the result wasn't really nice, let's me explain why.

No double-side textures, because double-side + alpha = no shadow..... which is already a big damn pain.

Then, I have to create a lots and a lots of leaves because we won't be able to see the ones that are on their back-side.
But I must agree that I didn't make a lots of leaves by square textures. Only 5-8. It just need an insane amount of polygons, to have a somewhat good effect.

How do you proceed? What are your solution? Is there any way to get the double-side + aplha without sacrifying the shadows?

My best guess is that, you make the grass as REALLY low polied models. Like, 3 polies per grass. Doom 3 isn't really into foliage shadowing. Too sharp and dark. Don't forget to check the ambient fix on modifications board. That helps alot to make outdoor areas.

hmmm, and what about Quake Wars. Is there any addition they did to create thoses things possible. I thinks they added softer shadows too.

edit : Im downloading the SDK, I will see what they did for their foliage's materials

I haven't looked into it but odds are that the materials used in ETQW and such for folliage don't interact with lights at all. Given the shortcommings of the engine, in regards to transparency and masking it's just not practical to invest a lot of time into finding an passable solution.

I would hazard a guess that they probably just use a full bright image and just modulate the color and intensity using shaderparms or vertex colors. This way they can adjust the colors of each entity till it look like it belongs in the scene.

Hi everyone, I got a question that I finally never found an answers.

How do you guys handle foliage?
I mean, I tryed and the result wasn't really nice, let's me explain why.

No double-side textures, because double-side + alpha = no shadow..... which is already a big damn pain.

Then, I have to create a lots and a lots of leaves because we won't be able to see the ones that are on their back-side.
But I must agree that I didn't make a lots of leaves by square textures. Only 5-8. It just need an insane amount of polygons, to have a somewhat good effect.

How do you proceed? What are your solution? Is there any way to get the double-side + aplha without sacrifying the shadows?

My best guess is that, you make the grass as REALLY low polied models. Like, 3 polies per grass. Doom 3 isn't really into foliage shadowing. Too sharp and dark. Don't forget to check the ambient fix on modifications board. That helps alot to make outdoor areas.

hmmm, and what about Quake Wars. Is there any addition they did to create thoses things possible. I thinks they added softer shadows too.

edit : Im downloading the SDK, I will see what they did for their foliage's materials

I haven't looked into it but odds are that the materials used in ETQW and such for folliage don't interact with lights at all. Given the shortcommings of the engine, in regards to transparency and masking it's just not practical to invest a lot of time into finding an passable solution.

I would hazard a guess that they probably just use a full bright image and just modulate the color and intensity using shaderparms or vertex colors. This way they can adjust the colors of each entity till it look like it belongs in the scene.