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Better vegetation (mainly grass) with Unity 5 (and SpeedTree?)
Heya!
So I've been trying to make good-looking grass with Unity 5 and SpeedTree but I haven't succeeded yet. As far as I can remember Unity's own grass simulation is not so beautifull. But the problem with SpeedTree is that usually SpeedTree models have too high polycounts. 10 verticies is just too much for one spike of grass (even if it's animated), and there should be hundreads of thousands of spikes of grass in one level. So is there a more efficient way of doing grass? I would appreciate a lot if you have a tutorial to link. And btw, I could make really low-poly stationary grass but on the other hand it's just stationary.
:)
I've found Unity's grass (the waving 2D planes) can be fine, with a little practice. Just don't look straight down at it.
@Owen Reynolds not looking down isn't an option is you're making a top down game.
Grass is very hard. At the moment I have to choose between unity billboards which look like utter crap from most angles (I think the lack of shadows is the worst part, and weird way it forces you to have additional colors (healthy and unhealthy) that end up making the image look rubbish), or decent low poly grass meshes that do not move. I could animate them with bones but I'm worried that will kill performance.
It's pretty sad that I'm thinking of switching to cry engine over grass.... I guess aesthetics are really important to some people :/
Answer by devstudents · Sep 19, 2015 at 02:46 AM
@Teo3.N After some digging around, I found this: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/shader-moving-trees-grass-in-wind-outside-of-terrain.230911/
I'm really happy with it. I just attached the shader to my grass model and I can alter the wind speed, bending rate, and movement time.
I now get the same benefits of having a billboard but with a pretty mesh that casts shadows. Of course, poly count is a problem. I have have Mesh Baker for that though and I believe there is a way to make the shader fade when it's a set distance from the camera. Someone in the post I linked mentions it but doesn't show us how he achieved it.
So I'm going to stick with unity after all... I just have learn more about shaders :)
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