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Unity trees on things other than Unity Terrain?

Discussion in 'Editor & General Support' started by windexglow, Nov 21, 2010.

  1. windexglow

    windexglow

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2010
    Posts:
    378
    I've been looking around, and Unity's tree generator seems to be one of the better free ones out there. It is powerful, fast, free, uvs correctly.

    Problem is it is feeling like you can only use it on unity terrain, I use my own procedural plane generated at start for my 8x8km terrain. My game is third person so I would not benefit from tree bill-boarding - the trees are placed procedurally at startup - where they will be combined.

    My question is how can I get the (full) mesh of the tree? Could I get the mesh data and export them as a useable mesh file via scripts?
    I notice the trunk+branch (lacking leaves fronds) in a prefab - where are the leaves and fronds?
     
  2. Tom163

    Tom163

    Joined:
    Nov 30, 2007
    Posts:
    1,290
    The tree prefab the tree creator makes is a prefab and can be used just like a mesh. Drag it into your scene and place it wherever you want. The only thing that you can't do with it is export it to some other 3D program. But you can use it within Unity just fine, not only on terrain.
     
  3. Dreamora

    Dreamora

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2008
    Posts:
    26,601
    just keep in mind that if it isn't on terrain it won't have any imposter lod as well so you have to keep it under control basically
     
  4. windexglow

    windexglow

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2010
    Posts:
    378
    I'm not placing one or two trees. I am procedurally placing them on 8x8 kilometers worth of terrain. There will be tens of thousands of trees. They're all placed randomly at startup so they can not be preplaced.

     
  5. sujinlab

    sujinlab

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2010
    Posts:
    7
    If so be that, serious trouble..
    I have same problem, so be finding article in documentation.

    Please, Do you tell me where related article is? :
     
  6. lasco

    lasco

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2009
    Posts:
    101
    I second this one.
    Trees seriously need to offer some distance based LOD refreshment that is connected to Unity Terrains.
    This lack could just make these trees unusable as Unity Terrains are often unusable themselves for so many other reasons.

    What's just needed is :
    - ability to place trees one by one, by hand in a scene (not allowed with Terrains)
    - distance based LOD (only allowed with Terrains)

    can't believe it's not possible while so many fantastic and complicated features are offered yet by the soft.
     
  7. Dreamora

    Dreamora

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2008
    Posts:
    26,601
    Unity has no trees.
    Unity has foliage and detail object layers on terrains.
    Thats not the same and its not seperateable from terrains in any way due to that.

    Why you can't place tree by tree: Because trees like the terrain mesh at no point exist in a descrete form basically.
    You paint a distribution map for detail and foliage.
    You can think of detail and foliage painting as being comparable to the splatmap you paint for the texture. Thats what you practically do and where the "fast placement" but also the limitations come from.
     
  8. Pärtel

    Pärtel

    Joined:
    May 3, 2011
    Posts:
    6
  9. Demostenes

    Demostenes

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2010
    Posts:
    1,106
    Make smallest brush possible, put 100 percent density and you can paint one by one.
     
  10. Wolfos

    Wolfos

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2011
    Posts:
    950
    64 square kilometers of terrain? D:
    You can script it yourself, place the models using the script, LOD it yourself, etc.