RS2 landscapes

[Bardo]

Roma Surrectum 2 have allowed us to use their improvements to landscapes for next lotr-tw version!

Tone, the creator of the new vegetation and terrains has kindly shared his work with us and we are already working to adapt them to the lotr regions. And dvk901 has also allowed us to use his new rivers and water reflections, as well as new improved shaders.

I feel like importing lotr-tw into a new TW engine, and I personally like this new look even more than MTW2. Thanks to RS2 team for the hard work, and for sharing it with this mod.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Tone and DVK released the vegetation to LOTRTW? Wonderful news! It'll make the battles even better.

[saxdude]

Roma Surrectum 2 have allowed us to use their improvements to landscapes for next lotr-tw version!

Tone, the creator of the new vegetation and terrains has kindly shared his work with us and we are already working to adapt them to the lotr regions. And dvk901 has also allowed us to use his new rivers and water reflections, as well as new improved shaders.

I feel like importing lotr-tw into a new TW engine, and I personally like this new look even more than MTW2. Thanks to RS2 team for the hard work, and for sharing it with this mod.

ACLARATION: Tone and DVK not working for this mod, they allowed lotrtw to use their work for RS2.

[paradamed]

How are the new environments working in LOTR TW? Any screenshots, pls? How is the progress?

[Bardo]

Currently they look almost the same than Rome Surrectum 2... although we are already modding them a bit to fit more to middle earth. Those are unmodded RS2 landscapes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We are also trying to improve the looking of Mordor and Mountain terrains where there not use to appear vegetation:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Beautiful!

[paradamed]

Wonderful! It made LOTR TW even a greater mod. Im anxious to check the custom modifications you already made.

[Wulfburk]

Awesome, after all this time i still have alot of fun playing LOTR TW, imagine with the new update!

[sapped]

amazing work, hopefully its well optimized as well

[The Despondent Mind]

Well That's a reason to get drunk !

[Bardo]

It is still a work in progress to adapt RS2 enviroments to Lotr climates.
This is the current aspect of each climate:

Alpine (=RS2):


Highland (modded RS2):


Grass Infertile (modded RS2):


Grass Fertile (=RS2):


Swamp (NTW textures + RS2 vegetation):


Open Forest (=RS2):


Deep Forest (modded RS2):


Semi-arid (=RS2):


Sand (=RS2):


Rocky (=RS2):


Mordor (modded RTW textures and rocks):


Note those are images taken from battle editor, without grass, and with poor lighting... they look a bit better in game. I'll try to take some better screens when finished.

amazing work, hopefully its well optimized as well

I find RS2 files well optimized. I have tested those new vegetations and textures under my Pentium 1Ghz GeForce4 (under min requeriments to play RTW), and I'm able to play battles with 2 full armies, 1024 resolution, high ground detail and high unit detail, at a reasonable 20 fps or so. It is when I rise vegetation detail that fps drops to 10 or so, but I must say the enviroment looks almost as good in my old pc than my new one, and battles are still playable.
We will include a low resolution pack for vegetation, same than they did for RS2, and I guess the minimum requeriments are going to be practically the same than vanilla RTW.

It is the buildings and cities that are not well optimized... if you can play patch 2.08, you surely will be able to play next patch.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Yeah; RSII landscapes barely hit performance.


I notice this had been edited:

ACLARATION (to next post): Tone and DVK not working for this mod, they allowed lotrtw to use their work for RS

For as far as I know my post doesn't state that they work for LOTR TW, it states that they released the vegetation to the LOTR TW team:

Tone and DVK released the vegetation to LOTRTW? Wonderful news! It'll make the battles even better.

I don't see the problem

[Bardo]

Ok, no problem, I missunderstood you. Edited first post again.

[tone]

Great to see this work progressing. Good luck with getting this finished.
One thing I would suggest is using the marsh textures and settings we've used in RS2 as it's the only bit that doesn't look right in those screenshots you've posted and the marsh in RS2 is very much similar to the kind of thing you might expect to see in the dead marshes....

[Bardo]

Hey Tone, welcome here.

I admit your marshes look like real photos, you know I'm a fan of your work, and I have kept it untouched for many climates, I just wanted to give to lotr dead marshes a look more similar to the films:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The screens I posted were from editor view without grass and lighting, and the swamps do not look right that way, but once in game I think they look almost as good as RS2 marshes, and I'm first to know how hard is to get landscapes that do not look ugly compared to RS2 ones

Thank you again for your work and for you collaboration with this mod. Your feedback and criticism about our changes to your work are more than welcome.

This is the same climate in battle view (this time with Tone's swamp grass):

[wlesmana]

The swamp in RS2 is nothing short of beautiful. It's very scenic and realistic. We're aiming for a more dreary, hostile-looking atmosphere however. So not quite a swamp in real life but more fantastical with ghost-like ambiance. It is, after all, a graveyard after an epic war filled with malignant spirits.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

I already expressed myself about the RSII environments (Awesome), but I really applaud the work you guys have done here on the dead marches.
It is @$%&!^&#^ amazing!

[tone]

Oh cool, that looks much better - it was looking way too bright and lime green before.

[wlesmana]

Again, can't stress how much we owe to RS2 team for the super awesome landscape improvement and even graphical upgrade. It's like RTW got a facelift and became a game that could compete with newer games. Hard to believe the engine is 6 years old with these graphics.

[tone]

It's a pleasure. LOTR-TW and the Napoleon mod were the reasons I bought RTW in the first place!