You could try some form of "imposter rendering" to handle the wheat in the
distance, but I would say this should be tried after moving things onto the
GPU and seeing what kind of performance you get. Imposters are a useful
technique but have their own cost which really needs to be taken into
account since it could slow things down if used improperly. 

If you're fillrate limited you can opt for alpha testing instead of blending
for your textures which will help speed things up. On modern hardware you
can get this to look very nice with some transparency anti-aliasing. 

Good luck

E.

---
Eric Maslowski
Research Computer Specialist
University of Michigan 3D Lab

Autodesk 3D Studio Max Certified Trainer

email:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
office: 734-615-9699
mobile: 734-730-9904


-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jesse Lane
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 00:58
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Opensg-users] Particle tricks

Thanks.  We'll be viewing the wheat from the viewpoint of a combine or
tractor so from the ground.  We are batching the wheat into "cells" of about
a meter or so wide, so quite a large bunch.  I have the GPU Gems books and
have read that particular article and may try to implement some of the ideas
there.  My only problem with putting entire rows on a single object is that
the wheat is harvestable so I'd have to recalculate the different LODs all
the time.  Is this done often?  Is it reasonable(possible)?  Thanks again. 

-jesse


On 10/17/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 

        Hi Jesse,
          How will you be viewing the fields of wheat? Will you be viewing
it
        from above, on the ground, or both? Generally speaking, try to batch
        your strands of wheat if possible. Avoid one stalk per particle for
        everything. Try putting multiple stalks on a single particle. For
        particles in the distance, try putting entire rows on a single
object 
        instead of keeping individual particles. This works particularly
well
        with distance LODs that "fade" between levels. If you animate the
        foreground then the switch is rarely noticed.
        
        There's an article in the first GPU Gems Book (and on NVIDIA's
website 
        I believe) entitled "Rendering Countless Blades of Waving Grass" by
        Kurt Pelzer. It a great article and would be a good place to start.
:)
        
        Best,
        
        E.
        
        
        Quoting Jesse Lane < [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >:
        
        > Hello all.  I'm currently working on a project that simulates a
large field
        > of wheat that is harvestable.  I'm currently using particles to
represent
        > the wheat.  I need to be able to render quite a lot of pieces.
Right now my 
        > frame rate is dropping to about 5fps when rendering 10,000
particles, and if
        > possible we'd like to push this up to another order of magnitude
(or even
        > 2).  I'm not an expert in particle systems, or graphics for that
matter, and 
        > I could use any suggestions, tips, or tricks that can be tossed my
way for
        > optimizing this field.  I'm contemplating pushing some of the work
out to
        > shaders, especially since I'd like to add some effects like wind
and noise. 
        > I've done some rudimentary profiling and the lion's share of the
time is
        > being spent in the render call (I'm using VRJuggler and my
application is a
        > cannabilized version of OpenSGApp so the render call is in
draw()).  Thanks 
        > in advance.
        >
        > Jesse Lane
        >
        
        
        
        
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