New BIS service available

[ohara]

With talk about vegetation for realtime purposes in TUV in Vienna, we open new site for vegetation generator services in BIS. site adress is http://linda.bistudio.com/

[.kju [PvPscene]]

Interesting page and thanks for the information ohara.

Can please elaborate what the plans are for linda.

Is it possible that individuals, educational, commercial
organizations or community members may get access to the tool
at some point under certain conditions.

Or is the page meant to demonstrate the technology and tools
that you use without further intentions.


Thanks!

[ohara]

Linda is very sophisticated and complex tool, so we are now offering it just as service-data for custommers. There is possibility to sell also licence, but it will not be cheep software. About some public version, there is no decission jet about that, but im afraid its not usable without some special lessons how to use it. Its very different from standard modeling tools or procedural medelers, that you can know.

[raedor]

With talk about vegetation for realtime purposes in TUV in Vienna, we open new site for vegetation generator services in BIS. site adress is http://linda.bistudio.com/
What's going on in Vienna? Can you post a link or something? Is it public?

[ohara]

http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/courses/Konversatorium/upcoming/index.html
I'm afraid its only for TUV students.
Refernces, news and events like this, will be on this site soon.

[.kju [PvPscene]]

Thanks for the answer ohara!

If the page is meant to serve this purpose, it would be good to
express it more clearly on it as well.


Quote[/b] ]Linda is very sophisticated and complex tool, so we are
now offering it just as service-data for customers. There is
possibility to sell also license.

[MehMan]

hmm in what applications has linda been used so far?

[raedor]

http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/courses/Konversatorium/upcoming/index.html
I'm afraid its only for TUV students.
Refernces, news and events like this, will be on this site soon.
Thanks for the link, I'll see if it is possible to be there.

[ohara]

OFP:elite, VBS2, Armed Assault, ARMA2, Carrier Command and now Daemonica2 (cinemax company). We are offering it for 3rd party customers very short time.

[sparks50]

Sounds a bit like the SpeedTree tech.

[ohara]

Its very different from speed tree. first of all, speed tree do very unrealistic all tree similar models. Second, speed tree does not alow cast real shadows and recive incoming direct light due used billboard technology. Same with some interactions. There is lot of other diferencies, but i dont want to explain them more sophisticated there.

[hardrock]

http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/courses/Konversatorium/upcoming/index.html
I'm afraid its only for TUV students.
Refernces, news and events like this, will be on this site soon.
Very nice! I'll try to be there. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[raedor]

http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/courses/Konversatorium/upcoming/index.html
I'm afraid its only for TUV students.
Refernces, news and events like this, will be on this site soon.
Very nice! I'll try to be there. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif
Hah, so we maybe meet up again once more. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

I hope they let me in there. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

[Commando84]

sounds really cool! I'm wondering will tree's change color and amount of leaves when you chance time of year in the mission editor in Arma 2? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[mr.g-c]

Wow, thats very cool!
I bet there would be (in theory) a lot of potential customers...

Question: When Arma2 is out and a modder wants to make a new Tree or Bush type, does he then needs "Linda" for that, in order to achieve similar quality trees/bushes/foliage?

[Max Power]

Looking at their website, it should be perfectly possible to do foliage just as good as Linda. Linda seems like a tool that automates much of the process, and also emulates the way in which trees grow so you don't have to do so much research. Making trees like Linda will be much more time consuming, but it should be perfectly possible to manually get to the quality of Linda. Getting there will just be much slower.

[Berghoff]

Nice to see this happening. Linda looks so much better than speedtree. =) Hope to see more beautifull nature in games in future.

Good Luck. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[raedor]

Question: When Arma2 is out and a modder wants to make a new Tree or Bush type, does he then needs "Linda" for that, in order to achieve similar quality trees/bushes/foliage?
Sure, Linda was used for A1 as well, and there it was possible to make trees manually. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

/edit: BTW, just got an answer... I'll be there!

[jerryhopper]

So, if i understand this right :

This tool will be sold to customers for a big price.
It needs special education to use this tool.

Although this tool has been used in ArmA & ArmAII, there might be a good chance that this will not be released for the modding community, since its a direct threat to the sales that BIS hopes to get from this tool.

If this tool IS being released to the modding community, its very likely that :  
1. it will be a dumbed down version.
2. it will take a considerable time before it will be released.

please tell me i am wrong!

/*cynical mode off/

the vegetation looks ABSOLUTLY FABULOUS!

keep the good work up guys!

[Mr Burns]

/edit: BTW, just got an answer... I'll be there!
Seeing that its today....can we get a summary later?  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[DM]

So, if i understand this right :

This tool will be sold to customers for a big price.
No, the data created by this tool will be sold to customers (to start with)

[jerryhopper]

So, if i understand this right :

This tool will be sold to customers for a big price.
No, the data created by this tool will be sold to customers (to start with)
no offense,

But i'd rather get some sort of an answer from someone that carries the BIS developer or team stamp under their name.

do you mind?

[DM]

So, if i understand this right :

This tool will be sold to customers for a big price.
No, the data created by this tool will be sold to customers (to start with)
no offense,

But i'd rather get some sort of an answer from someone that carries the BIS developer or team stamp under their name.

do you mind?
Ohara already stated:


...we are now offering it just as service-data for custommers. There is possibility to sell also licence, but it will not be cheep software.

So I guess you were half right, but as Ohara says, they havent decided yet.

[RavenDK]

BIS crew.. Any one?  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/whistle.gif

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">DM Online
&#34;I&#39;m &#91;NOT&#93; here to help&#34;[/QUOTE]

No offence.. but [NOT] help somewhere els ?

[jerryhopper]

damn&#33; - stay cool ravendk.
we dont wanna have &#39;another thread gone bad&#39;

@<hidden>

"...we are now offering it just as service-data for custommers.
There is possibility to sell also licence, but it will not be cheep software."

In my world, a &#39;service&#39; or &#39;expensive software&#39; are two complete different things.

Again, i could be wrong. but that is why i ask the question in the first place.

[Manzilla]

Since they haven&#39;t decided about a public release I&#39;d say the specifics haven&#39;t been decided yet. I&#39;m wondering the same thing as you so I look forward to an answer, if possible.

That vegetation looks pretty wicked.

[Dwarden]

very nice to see more public info about Linda and official pages ...

for jerryhopper ...
Linda is &#39;very&#39; (that&#39;s weak word) complex toolset
and i think i not overshoot if i say it&#39;s maybe worth more than whole game engine in terms of license fees ...

and maybe in future we see &#39;lite&#39; variant for upcoming games which map makers can use ...

[jerryhopper]

and maybe in future we see &#39;lite&#39; variant for upcoming games which map makers can use ...
thanks dwarden,

That is a the information i was looking for.
Although i know the answer isnt a solid promise, the fact that there could be a possibility is a reassuring(*) thought.

Thinking back on what Suma said when i interviewed him, when we talked about his love for creating realistic terrain & enviroment, things are in a complete different proporsion now, then what i thought back then.


My last question:

Can we have a high-res (1280x1024) version of the first four images for our desktopwall paper collection to drool on?


(*i cant find the right word in english,i hope you know what i mean.)

[Opteryx]

Wasn&#39;t Linda and LandBuilder listen in the Biki as unreleased modding tools a long time ago?

[mr.g-c]

Is LINDA standing for something? In other words is it an abbreviation?
Can you maybe in future show a short video/slideshow of such a "randomized" real-time grow of a tree?

[Lou Montana]

It&#39;s based on Lindenmayer algorithm if I have it right ; check this link (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Linda) to know more

[raedor]

Speech ended. Even a short A2 live show. Cool stuff. Thanks, ohara&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif Was interesting to hear.

[jerryhopper]

Speech ended. Even a short A2 live show. Cool stuff. Thanks, ohara&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif Was interesting to hear.
We want the details&#33;

was nobody around with a phone-cam or voice recorder?

[raedor]

Speech ended. Even a short A2 live show. Cool stuff. Thanks, ohara&#33; http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif Was interesting to hear.
We want the details&#33;

was nobody around with a phone-cam or voice recorder?
No.

I made some pics, to be posted later (maybe).

It was about 90 minutes, ohara first showed a pps explaining what Linda does (BI&#39;s motivation behind it, etc), then he demonstrated Linda and the last minutes he showed some nature of Chernarus ingame.

He&#39;s been talking about biology, technical problems in its implementation (and different POVs on nature from programmer&#39;s and biologist&#39;s side), the workarounds and tricks they&#39;re using, technology used, etc. Linda seems to be highly modifyable, from the parameter windows offered down to the scripts behind it. He&#39;s been explaining e.g. the LOD system. He also mentioned future plans, e.g. "LODs in LODs", i.e. you see high detail on the front side of the tree, but parts of the tree which aren&#39;t as close will be in lower detail.

In the Linda demo, ohara made three birches with the same trunk model but with approx. 100,000, 30,000 and 1,000 polys and answered questions which came up (it is possible to create trees for different seasons and of different age, "mass-production" of trees of the same/similar type is possible, etc). Linda is able to create nearly all types of trees you can find in central europe. It can also make view and collisionGeo LODs.

Ingame, he was walking through a forest, nothing fancy, just nature.

I saw somewhere that people think A2 has forests with 1000s of different trees: This is not yet possible when you want playable framerates, he said, in A2 forests have 3-4 different models.

[raedor]

And pics, part I:

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0744.JPG

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0745.JPG

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0746.JPG

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0747.JPG

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0748.JPG

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0749.JPG

[raedor]

Part II:

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0750.JPG

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0751.JPG

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0753.JPG

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0754.JPG

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0747996/linda/20081212_0755.JPG

Thanks to Jan for the lecture, BIS for the tool, BIA for letting me go there, TU Vienna for giving the possibility for the lecture, Uni Vienna for the webspace, Daddl for the photo tool, Canon for the camera. No thanks to the crappy JPG-format and the 100kb rule. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

[jerryhopper]

Well, at least the vegitation looks better than 2 yrs ago.


More of the same, but 2 yrs earlier :
http://www.video.muni.cz/public....ace.wmv (http://www.video.muni.cz/public/gds2006/PocitacemGenerovanaVegetace.wmv) [170MB]

[wipman]

Hi, that Chernarus vegetation looks very good and that software
looks very promising at least in graphic quality for the ArmA 2, but
how it handles the fallen trees?, what happens if there&#39;s an explosion
near a tree or trees or when something big enough colides againist
a tree or trees?; the fallen tree or trees keep offering any kind of
physical cover againist the bullets for the on foot units?, do it or
&#39;em keep offering visual cover from the OPFORs eye, enabling the
concealment of the soldiers?. Do the branches that fall againist the
ground get smashed and flattened when the trees fall?. I miss this
kind of reactions from the current ArmA&#39;s vegetation and with the
info that i&#39;ve readed about that vegetation creation software, ain&#39;t
got clear that this supouses happen (in the ArmA&#39;s 2) with the trees.
Could someone from BIS tell us how the trees and vegetation in
general will act under this supouses?. Let&#39;s C ya

[rundll.exe]

That has verry little to do with linda Wipman. I think this tool only creates the model (maybe the config) but thats all

Its down to the engine where it would be used to define collision etc.

[itim_tuko]

Linda is able to create nearly all types of trees you can find in central europe. It can also make view and collisionGeo LODs.
Was it only Central Europe or also vegetation from other areas like southeast Asia or desert?

[raedor]

Linda is able to create nearly all types of trees you can find in central europe. It can also make view and collisionGeo LODs.
Was it only Central Europe or also vegetation from other areas like southeast Asia or desert?
We didn&#39;t see much content and what we saw was this central european stuff. Dunno what it takes to make other trees, but as it seems Linda was relying heavily on scripts, it should be possible to add more different types.

[ohara]

Its possible to create everything except some special species like some kind of cacti, this will need to add some new type of geometry components.

[Kegetys]

It would be nice if BIS could release a set of various types of tree and bush models for modding use (for ArmA or ArmA 2) for the community, they could at the same time serve as samples of what the tool can do for possible commercial deals... I&#39;d guess that the development and demonstration of the tool requires doing various kinds of trees even which are not actually needed for ArmA 2 or other products. It would help alot with making custom islands that do not look like copies of the existing island(s).

[Uziyahu--IDF]

The screens look BEAUTIFUL&#33;

Why would I want to set such a beautiful place on fire? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Opteryx]

It would be nice if BIS could release a set of various types of tree and bush models for modding use (for ArmA or ArmA 2) for the community, they could at the same time serve as samples of what the tool can do for possible commercial deals... I&#39;d guess that the development and demonstration of the tool requires doing various kinds of trees even which are not actually needed for ArmA 2 or other products. It would help alot with making custom islands that do not look like copies of the existing island(s).
I concur&#33;

[Lepardi]

That pine tree forest doesn&#39;t look that realistic. It&#39;s too scattered.

[Dwarden]

That pine tree forest doesn&#39;t look that realistic. It&#39;s too scattered.
on how many tree samples from real life You based this upon ? 10, 100 or 1000 ? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

i&#39;m pretty sure i saw such looking pine tree at least once

[Przemek_kondor]

It would be nice if BIS could release a set of various types of tree and bush models for modding use (for ArmA or ArmA 2) for the community, they could at the same time serve as samples of what the tool can do for possible commercial deals... I&#39;d guess that the development and demonstration of the tool requires doing various kinds of trees even which are not actually needed for ArmA 2 or other products. It would help alot with making custom islands that do not look like copies of the existing island(s).
I concur&#33;
It would be great invitation/impulse for islandmakers (and some kind of advertising of linda).
(Official) pack of winter/summer/autumn plants would be very helpfull.

[Lepardi]

That pine tree forest doesn&#39;t look that realistic. It&#39;s too scattered.
on how many tree samples from real life You based this upon ? 10, 100 or 1000 ? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

i&#39;m pretty sure i saw such looking pine tree at least once
no, the trees are fine, but they&#39;re scattered too much.

[Perun]

That pine tree forest doesn&#39;t look that realistic. It&#39;s too scattered.
on how many tree samples from real life You based this upon ? 10, 100 or 1000 ? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

i&#39;m pretty sure i saw such looking pine tree at least once
no, the trees are fine, but they&#39;re scattered too much.
there is another screenshot (http://linda.bistudio.com/pictures/linda-game2-project.jpg) with dense vegetation. I agree that it would be nice, if there will be dense forests. But for playability its better if it is more scattered. I heard it in one video where someone from BIS commented it.

[ohara]

After A2 I will try to create special island for A2 that will show what is possible to do in real time in visualisation of vegetation. High detail with high density and variability.Just to look not play there.

[rundll.exe]

That sounds good, will be nice for the Treehuggers and screenshot addicts http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/biggrin_o.gif

[WhoCares]

Interested people might also take a look at GroGra (http://www.grogra.de/) (Growth Grammars) (a colleague was a student there and pointed me to the webpage when I showed him the Linda page). I am not sure, but from what I read on the Linda page and on the GroGra page, (to an extend) they use the same base technology (an enhanced L-System).

They have also some free tools that you might play around with, though I don&#39;t know whether it is possible to create anything useful with respect to ArmA(2) modding...

Interesting might be, that they also use it to &#39;generate&#39; completely different things, e.g. buildings, terrain and more.


P.S. This is not meant as PR for an alternative product http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif

[mr.g-c]

Interested people might also take a look at GroGra (http://www.grogra.de/) (Growth Grammars) (a colleague was a student there and pointed me to the webpage when I showed him the Linda page). I am not sure, but from what I read on the Linda page and on the GroGra page, (to an extend) they use the same base technology (an enhanced L-System).

They have also some free tools that you might play around with, though I don&#39;t know whether it is possible to create anything useful with respect to ArmA(2) modding...

Interesting might be, that they also use it to &#39;generate&#39; completely different things, e.g. buildings, terrain and more.


P.S. This is not meant as PR for an alternative product   http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/tounge2.gif
Wow, this one is really amazing:
http://www-gs.informatik.tu-cottbus.de/grogra.de/gallery/images/alder.jpg

They are from a german technical university...

[ohara]

Branching on that tree is completly unbiological, in europe we have just two kin of branching behavior on leaf trees, parent with three or two child. But what i did not find is anything about generating of LODs for RT purposes.

[SaBrE_UK]

It doesn&#39;t look like any alder I&#39;ve seen.

[ohara]

http://linda.bistudio.com/ was updated with some tech videos and FAQ.

[Berghoff]

Excellent, to be honest I haven&#39;t seen other software that can make such realistic trees for games as Linda. Awesome piece of programming (for one person?)  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

BTW, is Linda also capable of adding 3d fruits like apples or coconuts to branches?  http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[sk3pt]

Yeah, those trees look stunning. Will ArmAII trees be on an equal level ? ...I would just go sightseeing.

[ohara]

equal (around 5000 polys)

[bionic]

5000 polys sound alot never had a look at the ArmA tree polycount are they equal?

But as you say 5000 polys and then you have a look at those dense ArmA 2 forests that gives you an idea how good the engine can handle those polycounts. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/thumbs-up.gif
Would be interesting to know what the average polycount is at a given frame or doesn´t the polycount weight that much performance wise?

[ohara]

In far distance there are lods with hundrets or less polygons. For near models are more important for performance overal surface then polycount. We are able to have about milion faces in scene without any problems.

[mikebart]

This might be a stupid question as it probably depends on the tree, but when you say about 5000 polys, could you possibly give a rough estimate of how much of those polys are alpha&#39;d and how much is standard diffuse, normal spec?

edit: Also, can it be used to generate flat tilable textures like grass and/or low lying plants on a plane and distrubute them in a natural but tilable fashion?

Amazing work, really hope you break into the market with Linda, I mean less speedtree and more Linda

[Synide]

You might wanna fix your url links under the Video (http://linda.bistudio.com/#Video) section.
One can still download them but some of the links are duplicates.

Cheers.

[Dwarden]

yep i noticed that too, it&#39;s just mistake in copy and paste link http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

but these files are there (just need manually set the FTP and filename)

[Mr Burns]

That 3rd video with the seasons had my jaw dropped for a longer moment..

Does it indicate there will be seasons in ArmA2? http://hx3.de/images/smilies/trippel.gif
...or is it impossible to change those parameters on the fly once the stuff is added to the game?

[mr.g-c]

Does it indicate there will be seasons in ArmA2? http://hx3.de/images/smilies/trippel.gif
...or is it impossible to change those parameters on the fly once the stuff is added to the game?
I&#39;m not from BIS so i might be wrong, but in the interview with Ivan Buchta he mentioned that it would be also some kind of "his dream", if you would have seasons ingame, which alters texures/particles dynamically...

So at the Interview-point in 2008 it was not possible (for Arma2)....

[ohara]

Thanks, links are fixed

[Hoot]

Linda is a nice piece of software&#33; I guess that implementing seasons RT would raise some serious problems, at least for me. First the masses of vegetation Real-Virtuality visualizes. Then the approach you would take: just switching, or cool blending. Where blending means that you can either just blend and fade some textures during night, or use gradient toning to make them look like aging slowly during a certain period of time. Must be looking freakin&#39; nice&#33; However, you have still forget that autuum to winter means, that leafs are falling off the tree. Another problem, just for trees... and then another one for all the other stuff. I find it pretty hard to do http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Wow, if BIS got it working RT somehow, i would take ArmAII as my new personal &#39;Landscape Simulator&#39;, like OFP sometimes was to me - but now as the awesomazing edition&#33;&#33;

[dentist guba]

even if there is no change in objects depending on seasons the new lighting will help the seasons have a bigger difference in feel.