Trees & Vegetation

[Watchman]

Why do you think the stereotypical image of a woodcutter is a big, brawny fellow ? I've chopped down enough small trees back at the family summer cottage to have an inkling of how hard work it is, certainly.

Side note: the funny archeologists over here apparently at one point tried cutting down a few trees with a reconstructed stone axe, just to see how well it performs compared to modern ones. The result ? Almost as good; the metal axes' real advantage is more in the malleability and reusability of the material rather than performance.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Yes it's true that almost all European woods nowadays are wood plantations. But...

Even if the trees in the game should be several thousand years old, it's not very likely that ALL trees are so old, and it's also not very likely that they grow all their lifetime. I don't think all sorts of trees can reach a Giant Redwood size in normal circumstances.

The RTW / EB fir trees are about 150 - 200 meters (500 - 650ft) high with a trunk diameter of about 5m (~17ft). That's more than highly unlikely.

And it's true that the natural vegetation of Europe is wood. But it's not only coniferous forest. It's a mixed woodland of both conifer and deciduous trees. Remember the preferred tree of the old Germans was the oak tree. We have very few really old oaks left in Germany (ca. 1500 or more years old), and they are definetly normal sized.

Would it be possible to remake the northern forests? Just shrink the fir trees to a reasonable size (I would be happy with about 70% of their momentary size), or better, create mixed woodland?

[Pharnakes]

Trees grow all their life actualy, when they stop growing they die, if you prevent them growing them they die, they have to grow.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Trees grow all their life actualy, when they stop growing they die, if you prevent them growing them they die, they have to grow.

But not that big. There are Hurricanes, Blizzards, and nasty insects buggering the trees, and even unannoyed, most of them would never reach a size of 150m. Period.

[Watchman]

Hurricanes aren't terribly common in Europe AFAIK.

[Sakkura]

Hurricanes aren't terribly common in Europe AFAIK.

Last time we had one here in Denmark was 1999. And I have to repeat myself, in an old growth forest there will be a mix of all ages of trees and usually also many different species.

Even if trees with 5m diameter did exist in Europe (but were probably somewhat rare) they would never have been the only tree size - the regular pattern of huge trees RTW shows is ahistorical.

[Foot]

Well hey, instead of all this discussion why don't some of you crack open a modelling program and make us some new trees. We would be very grateful.

Foot

[Pharnakes]

Hehe, I was wondering how long it would be before some disgusted eb member came along and said that.

Ahh well for the record I have no graphical design abilities whatsoever.

[Watchman]

Last time we had one here in Denmark was 1999.

Denmark's on the Atlantic coast. The German interior for example isn't.

[Foot]

Oh, we like to let things stew for awhile before we come recruiting for new souls.

But seriously, we are not happy about the trees either, and would love to have some differentiated sizes, but we really don't have the team members for that - we had to use Caius's (brilliant) palm trees as we couldn't do it ourselves. If anyone out there can be bothered to put something together for us, we would probably carve your name on a tree, with a heart around it. Probably.

Foot

[Pharnakes]

Did you try asking the napoleonic team? They will know how to do it at least.

[Foot]

Its not something we can add at the moment, vegetation stuff is very difficult for us to implement, and we won't make any changes to that area until 1.0. But if someone made it for us we would probably make an exception - probably.

Foot

[Teutobod II]

The RTW / EB fir trees are about 150 - 200 meters (500 - 650ft) high with a trunk diameter of about 5m (~17ft). That's more than highly unlikely.

And it's true that the natural vegetation of Europe is wood. But it's not only coniferous forest. It's a mixed woodland of both conifer and deciduous trees. Remember the preferred tree of the old Germans was the oak tree. We have very few really old oaks left in Germany (ca. 1500 or more years old), and they are definetly normal sized.

Would it be possible to remake the northern forests? Just shrink the fir trees to a reasonable size (I would be happy with about 70% of their momentary size), or better, create mixed woodland?

I think firs in Europe can have a max hight of about 60 m

and linden (lime ??) trees can get pretty old too - there are still a few 1000 year trees in Germany - larger old specimens have a trunk diameter of over 10 m!!

[Pharnakes]

Yes, lime tree is the right word.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Well hey, instead of all this discussion why don't some of you crack open a modelling program and make us some new trees. We would be very grateful.

Foot

I'm *quite* familiar with Gmax, but I use it for Flight Simulator. So I would be willing to help you if my part of the work would end with just making the model file. I have no idea what format you need for trees in EB, or how to implement them.

[Pharnakes]

Agian, ask caius or the napoleonic team.

[Bonny]

I have no idea what format you need for trees in EB, or how to implement them.

afaik in .cas files and in .item files (you need 3dsmax and vercis script to open those files)

Agian, ask caius or the napoleonic team.

Teleklos knows alot about this stuff, too ;)

The one who did this for the Napoleonic team, Duke John has recently quit RTW modding. In the Scriptorium you can find his Tutorial about modding vegetation in RTW.