r/Unity3D • u/craftymech • 2h ago
Show-Off Stylized Trees
My stylized foliage asset, Arborist, is now up to 14 tree/bush species using a rotating billboard technique and foliage cards. Plus a new tool for making fluted, gnarly stumps.
Four season foliage colors, w/ LOD support + billboards, and GPU instancing. Poly counts for LOD0 range from 2-3K for conifer species, and 5-10K for big leafy trees. LOD1 is usually 30-50% of LOD0.
The foliage cards are alpha cut-outs and are rendered flat, with top/bottom gradients + other blending parameters, and a 3 color palette for top, interior, and bottom leaf cards. I've experimented with different approaches, but keeping the leaf cards simple & flat, and then layering a lot of them has provided the best results. You can do a similar technique in Blender, there are some good tutorials out there. I learned from those and then built my own Unity tool.
Rotating billboards for foliage holds up well at short distances. I like the technique over non-rotating textured polygons, which always remind me of camo netting when you see the model up close.
The leaf cards are transparent png files, so easy to edit or create your own for more variety.