Linden trees and gale force winds

Here's a topic that will probably sink quickly, as I've never heard anyone else complain about it.

Have you noticed that the Linden trees seem to be awfully susceptible to the wind? Both of my parcels are up on mountains and maybe the wind is stronger up there, but the trees I use in lieu of ugly panorama walls bend over like there's a hurricane.

I tried to compensate for this by manually rotating them - and they are mighty hard to select due to so much alpha or something -- but today the wind is even stronger and they're right back to bending way over.

This is not an illusion created by the sloping land. I use the sides of my monitor to get them vertical. Real trees would break if subjected to that much force. It just doesn't look realistic.

Does this bother anyone else? Do you use purchased trees because of it? Linden trees are one prim.

Add prim supports? Just trying to help

Did you see that the trees don't sway any more in 1.23? Now we have to go to debug to make them move. I like the dancing trees and it is sad that they took them away.

Unfortunately, that is the price you pay sometimes for using the free one-prim Linden trees. As of the 1.23 client, they won't move at all unless the person watching them manually sets an obscure preference setting, so the problem of gale force winds and these trees will vanish soon. But then they won't sway at all.

Between now and the adoption of the 1.23 client, one thing to look for is to check the rotation of the trees when you rez them. Linden 1-prim trees tend to NOT rez in the zeroed orientation, for some odd reason. I find I always need to zero their rotation as I place them, or else they are tilted to one side even if there is no 'wind' at all.

It's possible to male 2-prim or 3-prim flexi trees and bushes that reach less violently to the in-world wind. I made some Cherry trees a while back that sway quite gently in the breeze, no matter how strong it gets.

This is why I love sculpted trees, that and they don't look like cheep cardboard cutouts.

I've noticed that in 1.23 the Linden trees seem to have more surfaces than they did, despite still being one prim. They look more realistic - especially when they had shadows, although tree shadows seem to have gone again after they re-released the 1.23.

I'm thinking it's time to try out the RC then. I haven't done that in a while. This default tree thing is as convincing as the default walk animation.

Thanks.

I think so, too.

But I do find irritating both the 'rez at an unrealistic angle and always have to be corrected' and 'react more to wind than anything else around' things.

Yes, this bothers me a little. The first time I noticed it I tried to mod them so they were not as susceptible to the wind, but that was a no-go. I've bought trees ever since.

I really like some of the Linden trees and think it's too bad that they are changing them to not move in the wind at all, even though they moved too much before.

I really wish they would just give us a variable value that we could tweak for wind effect on Linden 1-prim trees. Something in the tree itself, and not a client-side-only effect.

A nice client-side tewak: I found that in the 1.23.2 RC, there is a Debug variable for Tree LOD that if set to 2.0, instead of the pathetic 0.5 default, ensures that trees in visual range don't snap to crappy LOD levels as soon as you are beyond arm's reach of their trunks. Sometimes I swear the LL developers only test SL with a draw distance set to 32 M. And there is a similar LOD preference for terrain LOD. Too bad both are strictly client side effects.

It would be nice to add wind deflection as a parameter for this:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-303

while i agree that a server-side wind effect variable would be great, any kind of serverside lod option would likely kill my comp!

Ceera, could you tell me where to find this please, and how to set the preference for sway in the RC? I'm hopelessly incompetent when it comes to the Advanced stuff!

I've just logged into the same spot using the regular client and the RC, and the lack of movement in the latter is slightly spooky. The swaying of the trees has always been a favourite feature

Wow no swaying trees? that's a bit of a bugger, but I have had a few occassions where the swaying caused them to enter buildins through vendors etc, and because they were on Linden Land I had to get a Linden to come and relocate them.

Sure.

You need access to the "Advanced" menu, while using the 1.23 RC client. Ctrl-Alt-D should toggle that menu on or off.

On the Advanced Menu, choose "Debug Settings".

This dialog has a pull-down menu with LOTS of adjustable parameters that affect client-side experience. Here's the ones I mentioned.

RenderAnimateTrees = Defaults to FALSE, make it TRUE to make trees sway again.

RenderTreeLODFactor = Default is 0.5. But 2.0 works MUCH better.

RenderTerrainLODFactor = Default is 1.0. But 2.0 works MUCH better.

For each of these, choose the parameter from the drop-down menu, set the value, and it takes effect immediately.