@Scenario Rock and cliffs terrain texture question

[TesalionLortus]

Sorry for asking here, but it's a bit too "complicated" to type into a chat during a stroll but makes me wonder.

Would it be ever possible to somewhat tweak the engine and make it fully load all of the *terrain* textures in the scene? Not assets and objects, not view into distance further away, but just terrain textures all fully loaded on their associated surfaces.

So like on this picture:



Until I approach even closer, only the red marked part of the terrain textures is loaded. Everything else are these rough looking raw ground textures poorly rendered. If something like that was possible, to have them all loaded in the scene - it would be a game changer. And terrain textures alone are largely paste&repeat the pattern so they shouldn't be too performance intensive? Since these should basically boil down to a few textures, up to 10-20 at best. But I guess, as always, it's some fault in the engine why they all don't load? Something hardcoded?



One thing I can notice nowadays is that your world-building techniques with all these "asset" rocks and cliffs (so external objects/models) are indeed very effective for some amazing immersion up-close and from some distance away, depending on how these environments are set up, but it has a major flow - when the models/rocks with their textures are already there (for some reason those can load earlier?) but ground textures don't load yet... so all these model rocks shoved onto cliffs are just badly sticking out on many occasions unless you approach close enough for terrain texture to fully load... Some of the "raw" not fully loaded mountain cliff side terrain textures blend in better with rock objects and cliffs, like in Elderslade, but many places they don't. Looking at some of the mountains from afar is pretty much like that, starring at Misty Mountains from good vintage points, for example. Plenty of model rocks sticking out on them

Of course it's pretty terrible now when there are still these bugged colorful rocks from completely another region showing up sometimes :P but even when they are what they are supposed to be they don't always match the "rough" raw texture of the mountainside - since what they're supposed to match is its proper texture and that doesn't load when the "asset rock" does. Other potential improvements and graphic updates that can be made aside... this seems like the greatest "bottleneck" for the game's sceneries at this moment, probably?



Btw, while they're dated when it comes to detail of course, some of the older regions that never used model rocks on its cliffsides may appear much more "cleaner" and perfectly matched. They don't have rock models on them but that also means those rocks don't stick out in this situation when textures of the entire mountainside aren't loaded yet. Well, would be amazing if terrain textures could load all at once one day for all mountains and hills, from far away... that alone would significantly upgrade all these older regions and that's without adding any additional rock models onto them so no world-building work would be required... well... I guess... just engineering work... but would be worth it! And a major boost to any new landscape too, since even in new Gondor we'll have beautiful spots with new rocks and loaded terrain textures and then, distance away, or further up in the mountains above, just these rough not fully loaded smears for terrain

[TesalionLortus]

Hmm, I watched the Casual Stroll in Rohan and this question kind of answered itself there, with the answer being, that - theoretically, without getting into any specifics - something like this could be possible and shouldn't just "kill" the game or the server, because - apparently - it already exists to some extent within the world, at least in East Rohan? I think?

Scenario, you said in Rohan you had to flag the "land blocks" for war-steeds (so this different land block behavior gets enabled after player's war-steed is summoned?) so then things may load at further distances to keep up with the speed of movement, and you also mentioned you needed to flag things in a way that all land blocks that warbands move through are actually loaded (though not sure whether that also means all their textures loaded, in this case?). But seems like playing around with this stuff and allowing for greater loading distances could be possible. It would have to be an option under settings of course, since it actually affects performance no doubt, but sounds like a fine feature to vastly improve the looks and details of the game's geography, if making mountain/cliff textures load at further distances was a graphic option offered to the players (now, that would be something worthy of a "LOTRO Remaster" )

Btw, about Rohan stroll video, upon seeing them.. you immediately mentioned you were tempted to give a rock pass with new rocks to the Entwash river cliffs, but seriously... I really don't get it Not all rivers/places/cliffs need "sticking out" harsh rocks to be effective and all such "un-rockified" cliffs (=without additional asset rocks) have their associated rocky textures on them. These textures can convey their job quite well and in many cases they're very nice textures, perhaps can become even better with improved "texture generation" that Sev once mentioned as something you were working on for this "lotro overhaul" - and if something like what I suggested under this thread was ever implemented, then such textures/their land blocks can load from further away to make the entire impression of a cliffside seem much much better and far more impressive than with low res smeary cliffs all over the place.

I know these types of graphic upgrades are not exactly what you busy yourself with, Scenario, but just saying, you guys talk with each other too sometimes and maybe someone else from SSG happens to be reading this as well. And if there is ever any concern that a lot of your players have lower end hardware so "not worth doing"... seriously, think again, if you actually wanna stay relevant and attract new players to Middle-earth. Options under settings don't hurt, people can tweak and lower them. And the game needs meaningful, impactful upgrades. These are some real "graphic" game changers in my mind and a designer going back to obsessively "rockify" older places on a few occasions, for example, aren't gonna cut it and do anything significant to enhance the overall impression behind the entire game, might even end up destroying too much of the feel of such spaces depending on how such rockification turns out.

PS: on the subject of rocks and regarding future landscapes, I was recently reminded of amazing cliffsides of Wells of Langflood and their rock assets (which have a similar feel to the new ones from Swanfleet but gentler/less harsh I guess?), so hopefully you guys aren't forgetting these ones in the future design. More variety the better and Swanfleet rocks alone aren't a holy grail of all And the Daleland rock sets are also very very nice, for example