Basically, we do not wish to have the "invisable wall" notion anywhere within the zone beyond the outer zone bounds that should have terrain blocking the path to begin with. So, on that not, we still want to control the flow of players as they pass through the "open" tree top dungeon. By using planes with a foliage texture, we are going to attempt to sculpt the feel of the dungeon aspect. One thing we want to keep and actually utilize is the fact that it is open, and therefore, casters with "knockback" nukes will be able to effectively cause massive havok to a party that is unaware of this, or that are not ready to combat such spells.
So, back to the ideas, yes using invisable planes would prevent passage, and we could also use one as a "ceiling" to limit verticle travel, which the ceiling may infact be utilized, more so is the importance of a realistic feel of being able to enjoy the freedom of not being stuck down in a deep hold or between some bricks of a castle wall.
Another idea currently under consideration is keeping the area completely open, but making it so that levitate is actually required. In other words, we would be removing all bridges beyone the first one, and therefore would have to figure out a way to limit "bypassing" of portions simply by limiting verticle initial height so that as u slowly decend while using levitate, u can only get to the next tree. This would also lead to some interesting tactics for goups to attack areas as we could make the final raid area lower then the previous one so that the group could decend upon it after strategising on the platforms prior.
But these are just some ideas. Also, the size of the zone is still limited and will be drastically larger once done. One of our key thoughts while working on this project is to remove the "zoning" then run to the dungeon, "zoning" then run to the deeper dungeon, "zoning" now run to the deep raid part, "zoning" and now fight like hell to get to the raid bosses. Rather we want to have huge expansive zones that could be traveled for an hour (prehaps a bit large right now" and no zoning needed while running continuously. This means running at accelerated speed (bard speed, SoW, and so on).
Larger zones also bring up the issue with computer load times and so for that reason making a huge piece of eyecandy means both drastically higher poly count then previously seen in eq as well as potential decreases to proformance on the users end if the zone is too "dense".
We played with high poly trees, and by high poly, i a referencing with respect to the current trees (high poly have about 2400 for just the leaves, low poly are around 20) and the trunk of the tree is also drastically reduced (from about 300 to closer to 50). This is all done so that when having about 800 trees, plus the 100 or more (eventually close to 400 I suspect) and the terrain will be closer to 4000, that the poly count would be astronomical. Just the leaves alone (actually i need to double 2400 to 4800 becuase right now 2 sided polys dont seem to show both sides, so they have to be doubled and then the normals have to be inverted) would be 4800 *800 for the current size which since max has a face export limit of 64k, would mean 3,840,000 polys for leaves... and then break that down by 64k blocks, rounding up to 3.9mil for the few extra trees and such would be 3.9mil / 64k = ~61 seperate pieces for just leaves. This is where both max and the creation of zones is hurt as if u look at our older images posted, the trees there were inface much more realistic and were many times more complex.
So, all in all, we have found what does work, and what doesnt for the most part. There are still some things we are working to fine tune, but we hav amassed a huge collection of object that will be added soon as well.
--Any idea if bump mapping works? as this would change the feel of the game drastically,
Thanks for all the support, help, and advice/information.
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OrisonSeven
-A goal is in mind. but the view is still clouded-
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. It's pretty difficult for me personally, but how can one not be motivated to study it when they have all the old source for EQEmu at their fingertips. Slowly but surely I'm being able to pick apart some of what lies in their murky depths! Secondly I've gotten a pre-calc book to start buffing up for calculus for the long haul to openGL math so I can one day .. (scowls) be able to make the proper changes or my own tool for extracting all the visual assets of EQ... That day will come as will your project, but it's all about the time it takes. 
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