Does it look good from every angle ? I wonder if these straws being slightly generic wouldn't seem synthetic.
one reason it can work is because straw is very generic. given the frequency of it on offer to the mind, the brain treats it a certain way. so if you want to study it its going to look shit, but travelling past it its part of scenery and that's why you can get away with not having a highly detailed variant and still leaving the scene looking overall nice between everything and being visually balanced. all it needs to say in game is "I'm a hey bale", and that's what they are. one might argue its pointless to concentrate on it even to this level we are. but its worth it imo. as a major and deficient aspect in any sims is the feeling behind natural objects, be it grass, trees or hey bales. that's where strides can be made imo.Does it look good from every angle ? I wonder if these straws being slightly generic wouldn't seem synthetic.
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Read the rest of this update entry...Here is my second attempt for the hay bale.
I have give it so much detail, I find necessary when placing that bale near the track. As you can see we still count 66 verts and 56 polys.
The bale contains two objects - one for the brick and one for the edges ( this 3DGrass method - hairy stuff)
For bales more far away from the track the polys can easily be reduced.
I had to align all Normals to one direction because otherwise it doesn't look smooth enough with all the planes in different...
Yes, this ! I totally forgot this possibility, and for this case I think it's ideal. It will make the simple "box" look as good as it can, imo. Even without fins (which you would not see from further away anyway).Also consider (next year, unless you know a farmer who you can ask) doing some photogrammetry of bales and then rebuilding from that with normal maps etc.
You'd still need fins, but you'll get that realistic shape and variance and stuff from a real bale too.