Tree billboarding on custom terrain... or just set up LOD(PRO)?

...anyone?

I think the best advice is to try it. Spawn a few hundred/thousand trees using low poly models and then again with simple billboards and see the difference in fps/quality. I'm interested in the result tbh. I would assume a billboard will need another texture and thus increase draw calls, but the mesh will be simpler so... I wonder which way it will go ^^;;

Another option might be to just cull trees when they get so far away that you consider a billboard "acceptable".

I think I will go this route. This was a factor in deciding on making custom terrain. I will have much more control over the terrain in certain ways now. EDIT: Actually now that I think about it, I could put LOD component on tree prefabs and use unitys terrain system still too.