Render Distance for Grass

[jcleland 14]

I know this question has been asked before, but a search of this forum returned no results. I apologize if this question is a duplicate.

 

There are certain mods that provide a UI for adjusting the distance to which grass renders, but I don't see anything that would affect this in the sqf reference. I am familiar with view, object and shadow distances from a developer's perspective, but how do these mods allow grass (and possibly other foliage) to be rendered at an extended distance. Alive, for example, has 5 different settings I belive. At the highest setting, you can see grass rendered for quite some distance. It's been a while since I ran this mod, but I seem to remember that this setting was independant of view and object distance.

 

TIA for you feedback,

James

[killzone_kid 1326]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setDetailMapBlendPars

It does look quite ugly at distance as you start seeing patterns

[jcleland 14]

Thank you, I think I brushed past this at one point now that you mention it. I appreciate the pointer, I'll see if I can set it permanently for my client and evaluate performance (and repetitive ugliness, of course :)

 

Have a great weekend

[das attorney 857]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setTerrainGrid

 

read the notes for effect on grass rendering dist

[jcleland 14]

Thanks for the follow-up regarding render distance.

 

I'm unable to see any change when issuing this command. The documentation isn't clear as to whether or not it's a per player or server setting. I'm assuming that it can be set per player...

 

I tried running it in the debug console of my dedicated server but so no change in the distance to which grass was rendered. I also tried adding this to init.sqf thinking maybe it was a server side setting but this had no effect either. Debug console was run global and local. Where would you add this if you just wanted to test it? I think the documentation could be a little bit clearer regarding the examples. 

 

Thanks again!

James

[das attorney 857]

Hmm, I tried it in debug console (hosted and on DS)

 

setTerrainGrid 50 = no grass

 

setTerrainGrid 3.125 = lots of grass

[jcleland 14]

This is server-side configuration though, right? A comment on the scripting API page suggests that the user's local settings are not considered on a DS. I'm trying to figure out how mods such as ALiVE allow this to be set per client. I was able to set mine to a high setting (the settings in the PDA for that mod seem arbitrary, like 1-5, 5 being the highest) without noticing significant loss of client FPS.

 

Some of the players that are regulars on my server don't have the most powerful video hardware or CPU though and I'm reluctant to change this to lower than 6.25, where it is now. Still, I'd like to see grass for 200m or so before I'm only seeing terrain. It seems like 6.25 gives me about 30-50m before sparse becomes none. I haven't checked this value exactly, but there's definitely a noticable drop-off when viewing terrain from a slighly elevated position, such as viewing flat terrain from a hillside or 3m above.

 

Thank you for the suggestions again though, this is not a huge issue. I know my video can handle more than this, so I'd like to see a more realistic foliage environment if possible. Obviously not a show-stopper by any means :)

 

James

[das attorney 857]

Hi,

 

On my server, I set the desired value in params (description.ext) - this value is available over the network, then somewhere in init it's handled locally for each client.  So everyone has same value but it's set locally.  Seems to work ok like this.

 

If you want to know how Alive does it, your best bet is either to ask them, or crack open the pbo's and have a poke around.