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Speed Tree

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by foscus, Oct 22, 2011.

  1. foscus

    foscus

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    G'Day All,

    Has anyone tried or successfully implemented Speed Tree in any of your Unity projects?? I'd like to know how Unity handles it. same goes with Speed Grass, anyone used that?

    For those of you who don't know what Speed Tree is: it's software designed to create hyper realistic custom trees that you can either shape yourself or use the procedural functions to create endless variations of the same tree.

    Cheers,
    Corey

    Edit: re-posting this in external tools so reply there please. and if a mod could delete this :)
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2011
    foscus, Oct 22, 2011
    #1

  2. I am da bawss

    I am da bawss

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    What's wrong with Unity's tree editor?
     
    I am da bawss, Oct 22, 2011
    #2

  3. Dreamora

    Dreamora

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    its not possible to use speed tree without a source license.
    Speed tree hooks into the rendering layer itself and requires access to the graphics context, buffers etc which unity does not expose
     
    Dreamora, Oct 22, 2011
    #3

  4. foscus

    foscus

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    I didn't say there was anything wrong with it. i'm just curious about other middle-ware out there.

    Ahh okay, thanks for clearing this up for me :)
     
    foscus, Oct 22, 2011
    #4

  5. makan

    makan

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    I use it with UDK...not sure if it works on Unity...
     
    makan, Oct 22, 2011
    #5

  6. janpec

    janpec

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    It doesnt work with Unity but what you can do is export SpeedTree trees as obj file and use them in scene without problem. However i am not sure if you can use them with terrain system.
     
    janpec, Oct 22, 2011
    #6

  7. foscus

    foscus

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    i suppose that could become an issue in creating huge forests, but for the odd tree placed here and there wouldn't be to annoying i suppose :)
     
    foscus, Oct 23, 2011
    #7

  8. Dreamora

    Dreamora

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    not really unitys imposter tree system isn't that bad, a few thousand trees work with no prob
     
    Dreamora, Oct 23, 2011
    #8

  9. I am da bawss

    I am da bawss

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    Isn't SpeedTree use screen facing billboards for the leaves? So even if you export the tree as obj, it will just look aweful like graphical error since all the leaves will appear only one way while completely disappear from other way (single side billboard/polygon) because the billboard leaves are animated at runtime while exported model is stationary.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2011
    I am da bawss, Oct 23, 2011
    #9

  10. cannon

    cannon

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    The real power of SpeedTree is in the renderer, not the generated models. The algorithmic LOD system in the renderer as well as the built-in self-shadowing + animation puts their forests in separate league above most things you can generate with just the base model+impostor in the terrain system. I had problems with a client before because they wanted SpeedTree rendering in their Unity project. I had converted their game from Gamebryo+SpeedTree, and I could improve visual quality over everything except that.
     
    cannon, Oct 23, 2011
    #10

  11. janpec

    janpec

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    Ah right, totaly forgot about that. Ye they are using agressive bilboarding which makes it almost useless for mesh trees.
     
    janpec, Oct 23, 2011
    #11