Assets AltTrees System [WIP] [AssetStore]

Thank you very much for your help, everything was working well after replacement script

 

Is it possible to convert tree models into alttrees then deploy them using something like mapmagic via scripts? If so would they get placed as objects, would we still see the speed improvements?
Not sure it would be possible to have mm create normal trees then convert them due to the fact the terrain is generated on the fly as the camera moves around.

 

Hey

We are trying to use AltTrees for our VR project. Problem is your system doesn't recognize the mainCamera properly and it doesn't track the position of player, so all trees are just the groupbillboard type. Is there any easy fix for this? Like specifying object that should be used for players position tracking?

Update: After reinstalling AltTrees and importing trees from terrain again, it works correctly now

 

Are there any plans to integrate with Gaia? It would be nice to have Gaia spawn AltTrees instead of having to manually place them.

 

Hey guys,

I made another terrain-to-AltTrees conversion solution, in our case it works in 100-500 times faster then original one
It's not finished (and probably won't be finished by me) - there is no progress bar, in case if you have trees on terrain which are not "imported" to AltTrees, you'd need to click "Convert terrains" multiple times (until all trees are imported to AltTrees), but it satisfy our needs

http://pastebin.com/bZBG3T3A

I hope author will come up with solution for TerrainComposer2 which will work faster than current approach

 

Hello! I broke the Internet. After a few days I will answer to all (when I fix Internet). Excuse me!
Upgrade almost ready.

 

Hello. I bought your asset. Difficult to resist at this price point. But the current beta 0.9.4 youtube video does it no favours, with evident framerate drop when rotating the camera, obvious LOD changes, and at 02:14 the trees in front of the camera disappear completely for a couple of seconds. Look forward to seeing what this evolves into, but doesnt give the impression of being usable yet for production.

 

Hey. No, now it is impossible.

Hey. The plans are, but I do not know when.

Hey. I'll watch it. Thank you!

Hello! This is an old version. The new versions of these bugs are not present. Soon there will be a new video and a new update.

 

Are there any plans to use the new GPU instancing feature or is there a reason why it wouldn't work with this?

 

Its the last item hes working on for the next version. You can check his roadmap to see what features are being worked on.

 

Hello! This function is ready. Updates after 1-2 days.

 

Do you have an estimate for how much performance will improve with instancing?

 

I suppose that will vary, but a tree-heavy scene takes around 25-30 ms for the CPU, whereas the GPU only needs around 15 ms for a frame. Most of the CPU overhead should come from the thousands of batches that are needed for the trees right now. So in this particular scenario (and with my specific hardware setup) and assuming that GPU instancing removes most of the CPU overhead, it could improve performance from around 30 to 60 FPS and make the GPU the bottleneck of the system.
But good question @Diab1O , how many batches were you able to save with GPU instancing in your testing?

EDIT: Upon closer inspection, turns out most of the CPU time was spent waiting for the GPU. The GPU however, had around 10-15 ms of "other" not counted in with the "regular" GPU time. Still curious about GPU instancing, though.

 

In the test scene I got FPS increase from 20 to 40. It depends on the scene.

GPU Instances greatly reduce DrawCalls, but greatly increase the vertices and triangles. It should be tested for each scene.

 

that sounds a bit strange... why should it?
maybe a bug in the stats window. or where do you get your numbers from?

 

I agree, there is no extra triangles with instanced rendering.

 

Hello! I've corrected it, my bug.

 

Hey, were you able to get it working with Baldinoboy's Tropical Forest Pack? Was the only problem the shader used for the wind effect? As mentioned earlier, I get the same problem (requesting the normal maps to be fixed) with Yughues Bushes and Weeds pack, yet I don't believe he used any special shaders.

 

Hello!
No, I have not tested it. Can you send me a screenshot of the displaying problem?

 

Update 0.9.7 is available on altsystems-unity.net!
You can download the latest version from here: http://altsystems-unity.net/AltTrees/LastVersion/

Changes:

- PBR support
- GPU instancing (beta) (needed Unity 5.5+, and DirectX11+ or OpenGL 4.1+)
- importing trees from the scene
- floating origin(jump to the center for large worlds)
- shadow of billboards groups
- optimization of import trees from Terrain(thanks @simonjewell)
- to Import trees from Terrane added option "Delete Trees from AltTrees"
- to section "Patches" added buttons: "Delete All Trees" and "Delete All Objects"
- fixed billboards (thanks @larsbertram1)
- added debug window
- optimized warnings
- optimizations...
- bug fixes...

 

How do I turn on GPU instancing?

 

My performance in Oculus seems worse in this version than in last version, fps dropped from 140 to 100 ish.

 

Hi~~~
Are there any plans to integrate with "Alloy speedtree shader"?

 

Just a note to say Update 0.9.7 has AltTrees working better than ever on my SteamVR project (Vive) . Unity 5.4
Thank you, keep up the good work.

 

Trees not get cull when use occlusion culling?
Trees LOD not have culled?

 

GPU instancing automatically activated when used Unity 5.5.0+ and DirectX 11+ or OpenGL 4.1+

 

Hello! What version of Unity and DirectX?

Hello! In the near future is not.

Excellent thank you!

Hi, at the moment is not. It is in the plans.

 

I am using Auto graphics API in Unity 5.5.0f3.

Do I have to manually change it to use DirectX11?

 

Hello! DirectX11 turns on automatically if the card supports DirectX11.

 

Ok,

I have a GTX 1080, so I'm pretty sure theres DirectX11.

Why did my FPS drop with the new version?

 

Sorry if I am mistaken but more distant shadows were added here- {shadow of billboards groups} in the latest update right? Could that have caused the drop?

 

I'm testing new version with Vive, there is a significant frame drop with new version. There's also a weird jitter issue when navigating scene in editor view using keyboard. Also, major pop-in effect with billboards with last version they used to fade in. There is also the issue of Loosing The Trees!!!. Not sure why but yesterday all the altrees dissapeared!.

Please check your upgrades!

 

I am now studying the problem.

Can you give me more details?

 

I want to use plane billboard instead of sprite billboard can you add plane billboard material that facing camera?

 

What is sprite billboard? Now used plane billboard.

 

One tree Image that facing camera in stead of image of many side.
Sorry I'm also not good with English.

 

I appologize if this has been asked, I just don't have the time to read all the forum today and needed to get a quick answer.
Does this asset support interactive terrain trees, like uNature? I'm considering this as an alternative (or companion) to uNature for GPU grass and interactive terrain trees, but I can't seem to determine if AltTrees covers this basis as well.

So a few questions really...
1) does AltTrees allow for interactive (harvestable) trees and shrubs (small trees)?
2) does it also improve efficiency of grass (using GPU)?
3) the video shows your grass is lighting up when you get close to it, is that just a very close LOD shift?
4) and I can't quite tell, but the 2 videos, neither seem to show wind effects on the trees, is it just very low wind or is this done without including wind computations?

Thanks for your time, and I might just pick this up while it's on sale anyway, it looks promising but I'm always a little concerned about infant products that never reach their potential.

 

No, it's not available.

Felling of trees? It will be done in future updates.

Yes

Yes.

Video - the old version. I've already done wind for the SpeedTrees and Tree Creator.

 

Hi,

Has the problem been found for Oculus VR? Our fps went from 140 to 100 just from changing from 0.9.6 to 0.9.7.

 

Hi,
DirectX 11? I soon will release a patch to improve performance

 

I haven't tested, but does support for single pass rendering need to be implemented in Alt Tree shaders for this to work?

See attachment

 

From Unity 5.6 the instanced part of the shaders will be much easier. Just enable instancing with a checkbox on the material.

 

GPU instancing is already working. The problem is that it does not work well with high-poly meshes (eg trees ...), but works well with low-poly meshes (for example grass, flowers, shrubs, billboards ...). I'm doing the ability to enable / disable this option for each tree individually.

 

Added new video-tutorial: Tutorial 10. Import Objects from Scene

 

I just tried AltTrees, might use it in a SteamVR project. In the scene editor I see the Speedtree correct but after I hit play all I see are billboards, even up close?

 

hmm, seems to be a problem when using a SteamVR camera rig, if I use a standard unity camera with only the vanilla VR support in Unity it works. Any ideas how to fix? Also any plans on fixing so leafs do not rotate with camera? In VR this is very noticable, here is a vid. edit: haha, ok the vid is worthless, you cant hardy see the rotation. But in 100 degree FOV with a HTC Vive its very, very noticable.

If you make AltTrees work good for VR projects I think you will find a solid business helping us VR-folks getting nature scenes to our VR games

 

Hi,

set the tag "MainCamera" on the desired camera. If the scene there are other cameras with this tag - remove the tag on them.

Give me more details please. In the video, I do not see anything wrong. Unfortunately, I have no VR to check it out.

 

The SteamVR camera rig has MainCamera tag set,does not help. The standard camera that do work is untagged

Here is new video. The leafs rotate with the camera.

edit: You can also note the setpass call count,its way too high for VR. (500 trees, mixed mode directional light and 50 meter realtime shadow)

 

SteamVR camera rig has two camers both MainCameras, if I untag them it works. But I do not know if this breaks anything regarding SteamVR

 

Today or tomorrow I will release an update in which you can specify the desired camera in AltTrees

This feature SpeedTree shader. I will study this problem.

In one tree SpeedTree many materials, so many draw calls. You can make the appearance of billboards closer.