Without quoting anything or telling how freaking awesome the 2 new screenshots look here’s the URL to the 3rd dev diary.
PS. Like it? Find it interesting? Got 1 minute? If yes, please vote for it. Thank You. New system is almost done.
Dev Diary #3
Joe999
(Joe999)
#3
it was yesterday that i thought it’d be time for a new dev diary 
the day begins just good. thanks rosone 
edit: i was just wondering whether you can use that beautiful high grass as strategical cover, or if you can tweak it away because of performance issues. and then i was wondering on which hell of a machine those stills were rendered :uhoh: however, someone please gimme that gdf shot without that gamespy logo
bobjones
(bobjones)
#4
i was wondering that too joe. i bet sneaking around and sniping from the high grass is going to be a hell of a good time.
Hakuryu
(Hakuryu)
#5
I think it’s pretty obvious from the gameplay videos and screens that ground cover will only be drawn a certain distance, and not far. Some vegetation shows far, but these are larger things normally. Take at look at the lower corner above the Gamespy logo… you can see bare ground not far off by a bush, and under a tree farther back, but the megatexture does a good job disguising it. On the mountain behind the gun, you can also clearly see no ground cover. If you were standing in those areas, you might see it.
So as a sniper you will hate it, because it gets in your view, and enemies far away can see you when you can’t see them (if you are prone in it for example). I turn off ground cover if I can the first thing because of this in any game. Making ground cover very far distance a requirement would drop the frame rate on many players PC’s to a crawl.
But on a positive note, there does seem to be alot more vegetation that does draw farther away, which may give us snipers some love.
figvam
(figvam)
#6
Another dev diary which reads as a big deja vu, all the same things about assimetry we’ve read and heard tens of times already… Thank God there are two new screens attached!
ouroboro
(ouroboro)
#7
Since clients can’t tweak grass away in W:ET, I doubt they’ll be able to in ET:QW.
Angel1
(Angel1)
#12
Nice read and the shots look fantastic (yet again)
just left feeling a little teased again …“damn you, god damn you all to hell”
fattakin
(fattakin)
#13
makes all the effort im putting into building my core 2 duo PC worth it, if i can play with such tasty gfx
SCDS_reyalP
(SCDS_reyalP)
#14
Only if you assume SD are incapable of learning from their past mistakes.
There are ways you can make distant grass still work as cover, without killing frame rate completely. I would hope that for a dedicated MP game, SD would put some effort into that sort of thing.
bobjones
(bobjones)
#15
me too.
i got about half the parts sitting on my floor, waiting to finalize a few things before i order the rest (like what monitor to get)
ouroboro
(ouroboro)
#16
[quote=“SCDS_reyalP”]
Only if you assume SD are incapable of learning from their past mistakes.
There are ways you can make distant grass still work as cover, without killing frame rate completely. I would hope that for a dedicated MP game, SD would put some effort into that sort of thing.[/quote]
My quote should have read: “Since we couldn’t tweak away grass that didn’t work as intended, I doubt we’ll be able to tweak away grass that does.”
I assume they have learned from their past mistakes. In which case, they can’t allow clients to tweak away the new-improved grass, because it will actually have an impact on gameplay. Conversely, the grass in W:ET should have been a client option from day one, since it only affects the guy with his nose in it.
There may very well be a way to render fine details like grass without completely hosing framerates, but it’s never been implemented in any game to my knowledge. In Source, for example, disabling grass is the single greatest performance increase on my machine. I suspect this is because the grass is realistically affected by wind and even players brushing against it–something which I would assume is an expensive effect, and which I recall seeing in ET:QW movies as well.
I’m placing my hopes on a server option for grass, and sane admins who are willing to disable it.
U.K.Visuals
(U.K.Visuals)
#17
Info for all german speaking peoples:
Element from our site did a translation from the Dev Diary #3 and the Ark-Map preview from IGN.com. Now everyone should be able to read the whole text in german language.
Dev Diary #3 German Translation: http://www.planetquakewars.net/content.php?content.42
Ark Map Preview Translation: http://www.planetquakewars.net/content.php?content.41