http://www.speedtree.com/showcase

Wow. :foodndrink:

Click on the different video options on the left and prepare to be blown away!

I know Bethesda used Speedtree in TESIV: Oblivion, so here's hoping the latest verion of Speedtree makes it's way into the Skyrim!

it depends on weather the speed tree option looks better/ better performance than other options out there today.

edit: i liked the trees on halo reach, bungie managed to get non-speedtree trees looking good with little performance issues on an xbox so if bethesda can make more detailed trees like that for pc, id be happy

That was very impressive. I really liked how the trees could be dynamic with there surroundings.

The "Hand-Drawing + Physics" video is the best of the lot and if gamesas can implement this software [or something better ;)] into Skyrim, than just imagine the forests we are going to have!

The physics applied to the trees is completely on-the-fly, meaning they can be cut, broken - and even burned.

Think of the possibilities. :celebration:

Man that is pretty awesome stuff. I would love to mess around with that program. Ha, I only wish bethesda would use that. They probably wont though.

Cool. I think that we've all had enough of the polls tho, kinda unnecessary. I would bet money that Beth is using this. They used it in Oblivion why wouldn't they upgrade to the latest version.

i hope that they make more hand drawn trees or make an random algorithm for placing trees in skyrim. oblivions forests looked like copy/paste orchards more than the wilderness.

I voted no. But it actually depends on to be honest.

Here's what I think:
If it really hurts the performance big time to have no speed-trees, then okay, fine, but make them look good and realistic. Make the leaves look great and natural.

If not, have "real" trees. If I'm not entirely wrong, they make shadows look a lot better. Watch this video, they look just gorgeous... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Re377ol0g
I THINK that's not speed-trees on the video. If speed-trees, however, are used here; then by no means, use speed-trees if they can be done so they look that good.

I'd like Speedtree in Skyrim... it would be really awesome if they use PhysX, or similar on the trees.

Well speed tree is just a tree based middle ware not shading, it would have little effect on the engines shading techniques.

ooooh. pretty. but that would kill consoles and they arent going to have two seperate types of trees for consoles and PC......i wish but probably not going to happen.

Well they absolutey seem to go smooth as butter in this video. Then again we don't know that guy's PC specs.
Still I think it can be done fairly well and don't hurt performance too much.
Sentakai here in this thread mentioned Halo Reach had non-speed-trees that looked really good and with no huge performance hit.

Still the speed-trees videos were actually really impressive. It went... fast
But I believe they can be done to look a lot better even still. Especially with shadows, as I said. So that the leaves make shadows on the leaves themselves...

Bethesda already use speedtree.

Bethesda was a very early customer of speedtree. In fact one of its first. They have been using it for many years.

considering how it actually works, the ease at which assets are created and modified, and the low resource over head of it, I expect it to continue to be used.

I agree with Ghogiel (actually didn't know how far back it went). There is no reason for Bethesda Not to use Speedtree, especially if Speedtree has been doing the job. It was not only used in TES IV, but also Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas - you can see it listed in the intro screens of both games.

In making a AAA-rated huge RPG, its smart business for Bethesda to stick with what works and not re-invent the wheel. With Gamebroyo the reasons to leave it behind were obvious; the company went out of business and drew alot of criticism from the community, but mainly (I believe) because they went out of business.

With Gamebroyo gone and Speedtree as strong as ever, my vote is that they stuck with Speedtree (and anything else that Works). That will make for a better game IMHO.

Miax

one of the commenters said they got around 30 fps with a 250 nvidia card which is significantly more powerful than an xbox. that would mean a console would get about 5 fps if it would even be able to render it to begin with. the shadows alone would kill those ancient devices. they need new consoles like yesterday.

It says something about nVidia and physx...does that have any impact on people like me who use ATI cards?

Speedtree = yes, it's really come a long way.

I wouldn't have a problem with gamesas using speedtree again. It's a nice and convenient program for developers, and some of these new functions would look great in Skyrim. What gamesas does need to do though is provide us some denser foliage at some point.

No, AFAIK you are able to benefit from PhysX technology without nVidia cards. At least you can use a cheap nVidia card dedicated to PhysX in addition to your ATI card.

yes. basically all the hardware enabled features of the physics engine won't be hardware enabled. so if the game really does utilize what Phsyx is really offering then it's not going to be as good on an ati card.
That it can be processed on the gpu and the sdk is free to use are the reasons why I think it good stuff. but also why I think its a bit whack, seeing ati have something like 40% of the market share on gpus these days.

I have no strong feelings about it either way
I mean, we have no idea how engines or tree generators work, their compatibilities, and goals of the devs.
Given that we might soon see screenshots, I think it's safe to assume the decision was made long ago.

Found some more speed-tree related videos. Here's how speedtree looked like in 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhwZ7Sb0PHA
The trees there look too unrealistic I think. It looks kinda nice, but the tree trunks look too unnatural. And the textures for the leaves are way too low-res.

Anyway here's an awesome video though, showing wind effects. The speedtree here is absolutely gorgeous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86kblEEOgc
If they can make all speed-trees look like this, I'll be very happy.

And here's a fun video of something we might expect in perhaps TES VI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjZc9ayGlaM
There, every single leaf cast a shadow and its own shading.

I see. I don't like it then.

Speedtree rocks, but it all depends on how the tool is used really.

I just watched a couple of Speedtree videos, it's awesome They definitely should use it for Skyrim.