Best way to create realistic hedges?

Hello, I was working on a game where I would use hedges as walls. I wanted the game to have a realistic look. I was considering using a texture for the hedges, but I didnt want it to look like it was repeating and I wanted it to have depth(I'm not advanced with creating textures). So I considered using a model, but if I had many hedges that would create possibly lots of lag and if I wanted to create different sizes I would have to create many different models. Suggestions? Thanks

 

A picture is worth a thousand words so you can take a look at (and download) Nobiax's free hedges here:

That will give you an idea of how he did it. Basically, you use a solid textured core and then apply lots of smaller alpha-blended leaves sprouting out to give it some volume. Lots of them could hurt performance so you will want to create a few LODs where you slowly reduce the number of extruding leaves as the hedge gets farther away. Distant hedges can be just a single piece of solid geometry.

If you like the hedges, Nobiax has a larger set for sale on the asset store that you could check out.

 

Thanks a lot, exactly what I was looking for. I was primarily worried abbut different sizes so this works.

 

Thanks, Captain Science!

... I just really had to say that.

 

Another question, how should I go about adding the leaves sprouting out?

 

I think quads with alpha texture of leaves would be best, though you could also play with normal/displacement maps.

 

Yeah I also agree with quads, I mean how do I actually get them on the hedge (not that advanced with texturing). Could you point me to any documentation/tutorials?

 

Buuuump

 

if you use blender than you can use the partical system to do that. Model your leaves and the hedge "body". Apply a patical system o the hedge body and set it to hair. Go to the Reender section and choose Object or Group. Than play around with the settings. Note that blender will not automatically convert your Partical systm to actuall geomtry at export. So befor you export your mesh go to your Modifier stack and clck convert on the partical system, than join the leave meshes together. Here is a quick demo blend file that I created https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B728-OK3ZuOqbno4Qkc5djBmZEE/view?usp=sharing