Altering trees to be static?

[CautiousChaos]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking through the python and xml files. I'm trying to see if I can alter the graphical behaviors of the trees to prohibit them from swaying in the wind. I've ran some benchmarks and I get a 25% reduction in frame rate when I am over a tree area then when I am not.

Even zoomed way out (before globe view kicks in), I can see the tiny trees rendering as swaying.

If I could find a way to make those trees static, that has got to help performance. And without a big hit to the "atmosphere" of the game.

Wouldn't you agree? Any insight would be appreciated. I just don't know if this behavior is a "core" thing or if it could be modded.

-cc

 

[scarl]

Are you sure that it is not the polygon count of the trees that reduces frame rate? i think the movement of these polygons has little influence on performance...

 

[sovarn]

well you could disable animations in the options menu, however that disables all animations.

but it will help with your framerate (should anyway) as it did mine, but it not that pretty anymore

 

[The Great Apple]

I think you should be able to do it with .xml.

If you go to CIV4ArtDefines_Feature.xml in Assets\XML\Art\ ,and go down to forest, there is a bAnimated tag. If you pop this to 0 it should stop animating.

I don't have the file on this machine, so I'm not certain about this.

If that doesn't work, you could try removing the .KFM file which is linked to under the .NIF file. The .KFM file is the one that controls the animation... I'd be very suprised if the animation works without it!

Are you sure that it is not the polygon count of the trees that reduces frame rate? i think the movement of these polygons has little influence on performance...

I'm pretty sure if a polygon isn't moving, the rendering engine doesn't spend nearly as much time on it as if it were moving.

 

[CautiousChaos]

well you could disable animations in the options menu, however that disables all animations.

but it will help with your framerate (should anyway) as it did mine, but it not that pretty anymore

I had tried this once and the animations for units stopped, but not the ambients. It's been a while, but I'll try it again.

-cc

 

[CautiousChaos]

I think you should be able to do it with .xml.

If you go to CIV4ArtDefines_Feature.xml in Assets\XML\Art\ ,and go down to forest, there is a bAnimated tag. If you pop this to 0 it should stop animating.

I don't have the file on this machine, so I'm not certain about this.

If that doesn't work, you could try removing the .KFM file which is linked to under the .NIF file. The .KFM file is the one that controls the animation... I'd be very suprised if the animation works without it!


I'm pretty sure if a polygon isn't moving, the rendering engine doesn't spend nearly as much time on it as if it were moving.

Hmmmmm.... I didn't see that. Let me give that a try first, then if that fails, I'll try the file removal.

Thanks, folks. I'll let you know if I am successful and what the results are.

-cc

 

[MerakSpielman]

There's also an animation of birds when units move into forests and jungles.

 

[CautiousChaos]

Well, I gave the suggestions a shot and didn't have any luck. I couldn't find any references to .nif's related to trees. The xml schema didn't list any reference, unless I missed something in a base class somewhere.

Setting the option to Freeze animations only stops units and ambient animals from moving, interestingly enough. I'm not going to give up yet...

-cc