How much is too much? Plants and trees...

KarilynMonroe2

I'm getting nervous with the metadata objects. My world needs to have a couple of small dense woods and Munchkinland needs lots of flowers. Every time I add another tree I get nervous, but then I look at some other worlds, like Hidden Springs, and there really are quite a lot of trees.
Does anyone know how far I can push the limit in this area? Is there a limit?

Zach_Bundy

Here's what the CAW guide from EA says:

♦Clustering trees improves performance, especially if you have a lot of trees in your world.
♦Limit plants to only four species and a total of 30 plants per lot.
♦Use up to four terrain paints per lot.
♦Use no more than eight terrain paints in the world per 256 x 256 chunk.
♦Be conservative with double-walls and making pillars with the wall tool. They create small rooms that the routing system has to calculate.
♦To make lots look better on lower end computers, space lots further apart so that only one high detail lot is visible at a time



Now there is also some experience that we as a group have had with trees, of course.

Here's some easy math:

1 Tree=1 Object
10 Trees = 1 Object (when clustered within the same chunk boundary)
10 Trees = 2 Objects (when clustered, but within 2 separate chunks)


Of course this is all assuming that it's the same type of tree. Two different types of trees cannot be clustered.


My world, Tanzenberg, has PLENTY of trees, but while building it, I've made sure that I'm limiting the TYPES of plants per chunk.

For me, I decided to use Oak Trees, White Fir trees, Ranch Weeds, and Base game heather.


Now if your forest has every type of tree available, then you might have more to worry about.

Rflong7

Hi

Remember, clustering trees types per chunk to make it one object... it's still the MBs of that clustered object.
If you add 100 trees per chunk, clustered or not it's still the size of all the trees that make it one object that you need to consider.

Also, look from ground level through the trees and not just overhead. The only time we really look at neighborhood view is for us- the Sims and pictures are at ground level.
Which means you shouldn't have to worry about it being so crowded with trees at top view when it will look more full at lower level with less tress- if that makes sense.

Make it how you want it... and then check it out from both over view and ground level.

KarilynMonroe2

Thanks

I've got a lot of different kinds of plants and trees! I guess I will have to turn on chunck boundaries and start counting... Actually as I have different regions in my world they use different kinds of foliage in the respective areas.

At some point there must be a way for me to look at the size of my world (and now it gets technical and I am totally at a loss). How do I check the size and what are some good parameters?

I figure if it will run on my laptop it must not be too bad.


Just looking at this screenshot it looks like I am in trouble In the immediate foreground I can see 3 kinds of plants and 5 kinds of trees so I've got twice the recommended number of species and that doesn't even include what is on the lots. I already know I went over my terrain paint limit is some areas but I had read some comments that it doesn't really seem to make a difference.
I have to figure out a way to make Munchkinland as colorful as possible without going way over the limits. Ooh, I don't like being limited....I know I can cut down on some because this picture here is not the worst part! I really like this shot though. I don't know just what I can part with... Maybe I can just position some things so that they are in different chunks.