Best terrain & vegetation asset/shader

To those who have used these types of assets,what is the best way to make my terrain look as realistic as possible? Including trees and grass although those are going to need different shaders.

 

I am currently writing a decent foliage shader for the trees and grass, when finished (couple weeks) ill post a link here to the github you and everyone is free to use it when posted

will post pics soon.

 

Waiting for pics man, most 'realistic' foliage shaders in asset store are just scams, only one or two actually look real.

 

Thats not true, if used properly many of the store shaders are more than realistic, with some offering some very advanced SSS solutions . If you believe that the asset store ones are "scams", mine will be in no way superior. Make no mistake, a lot of the asset store shaders have taken years to make and are extremely advanced.



Are you sure you are setting up your lighting and graphical settings properly for your projects? You would be surprised how different the results the same shader will produce with different lighting setups etc

It also matters about the quality of the shader inputs. If you are using low res or garbage textures, it will produce similar results. The same can be said for all the shader inputs, often very specific settings are required and those can only be ascertained from the asset documentation/author/support.

Head over to mega scans and get some decent PBR textures that were made for a foliage shader of advanced quality (you need extra mappings like thickness etc, and those maps need to be high quality or the effect will be of lower quality), and then slot those into the shaders, set up your lighting properly and you will have very realistic looking foliage for almost no effort. Anything more will require you to learn to write shaders because unfortunately, a generic solution will never be as good as a custom one tailored specifically for your game/project/use case.

 

I used most of the packages unmodified and still could see how flat the textures looked. It was just not the "realistic" they sell. Then again maybe i have to setup it manually.

Post-stack ambient did some difference creating something around the leaves but still.

What do you have to tell me about lighting? Im gonna try megascans and see if there is deference.

 

Have you not tried this:

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/shaders/subsurface-scattering-shader-3254

Thats just one example of a SSS shader. its cheap, and if you put decent textures in you can get a variety of quality results, ranging from terrible to downright realistic.

You need to add the correct inputs, if your textures looked "flat" you obviously have not provided the correct maps such as thickness etc.

For a decent foliage shader you will need following effects and possible maps for those effects at minimum:

Sub surface scattering : thickness map - almost most important
Wind vertex displacement : displacement map
PBR basics - metallic, roughness, albedo, normal
Global illumination - if possible using global illumination will work well
Realtime shadows

The quality and resolution of the inputs will determine what quality and therefore realism you get in the final result.

Megascans will set you up with some decent quality maps, but getting a good SSS effect is a must for the foliage to feel like foliage

EDIT: for lighting look at lighting box on the asset store to set up almost perfect lights automagically

 

Thanks alot man, i thought SS shader was for objects like candles maybe lambs etc. I had no clue it can be used for vegetation.

About lighting box i see many negative reviews but unity's lighting system is S*** and nevertheless seems something new and says it contains some foliage shaders itself so im gonna try that too. I see many scenes though with ground full of grass but supposedly no low fps, is there some special technique?

I think megascans is more than decent, the highest quality atm actually. About all these you wrote (displacement, thickness etc) i havent met any of these names in shader slots, is there any source i can get more info?

 

No problem!

Unfortunately there are not any resources I know of that explain all the maps.

However you can learn about some of the maps from the substance documentation:

https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/SPDOC/Baker+List

As for displacement map, its used to move vertex about (like wind movement or water movement etc)

If you get a good SSS effect (which requires a thickness map to determine where to scatter light at what amounts) combined with standard shader (albedo, normal, roughness and metallic) and megascans foliage textures, you will have an amazing foliage look


EDIT: https://assetstore.unity.com/packag...ghting-box-2-next-gen-lighting-solution-93057

 

Hey man, i got 2 more questions for you.

I contacted the SSS author and told me that it is not designed for vegetation. What do you have in mind?

And what is tesselation shaders?

 

The most important part of the the foliage and trees is the Texture quality. Some textures looks very realistic and some others looks very bad
Here you can see unity's lighting demo grass texture :


Foliage only needs Ambient occlusion effect from post effects to looks beautiful (fake shadows)




Another beautiful texture :

Bad reviews are for Import errors

 

AO Effect:

This is Unity:




More Images:

 

Thank you man, those three of your samples is the closest to the quality im looking for:

Is it only about the textures/lights/ambient or something more? Also how did they do the foggy effect on the first image?

 

Download Lighting Box 2 and watch the video play list (specially 2.7 video playlist) :
Play List VIdeos LB2.7
Tree Creator Tutorials

 

Can we get close to the Book of the Dead graphics? In that video i saw the grass moving realistically (only the top part) instead for moving the whole texture. Maybe they were 3d?

 

you would want SSS then for that, try any SSS itll be better than no SSS

 

All grass solutions are 3d
You must create custom shaders for better grass rendering and wind support
There are a lot of the wind shader algorithms in the net

 

You can find grass model from Nature sample scene:
Lighting Box Grass Shader + Wind:

 

How is SSS used on foliage? On the bark or the leaves/grass?

By 3d i mean mesh not textures. How can i make meshes move with the wind?

 

You can use Wind effect in shader code (vertex shader)
3D grass is an plane with grass texture

 

just bake thickness map for the model and slot it into the thickness slot on the SSS shader, same way SSS is used on anything

 

In the Book of the Dead you can see the grass moving in real 3d not plane. It looks like its a mesh and only thje top part is moved by the wind.

Imma try and post an image

 

Yes thats a vertex shader. I feel you are either overthinking this or not understanding the advice we are giving.

Try a vertex displacement effect coupled with some standard PBR coupled with SSS and decent lighting as a starting point, and only AFTER that come back and say what about XYZ. Right now your assuming issues might come up or it wont look like X but you dont even know what results your going to get.

EDIT: plane or mesh it doesnt matter its still a displacement effect

Great, look forward to it will offer advice on where to go next once you have!

 

Thank you, i understand that i must use SSS for trees and vertex shader for leaves/grass. About vertex i found this: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/painting/vertex-tools-pro-55649

Assetstore doesnt have a clear "Vertex Shader"

 

It's not only 1 plane with 2 triangles. An 3D grass is a collection of the mi-poly planes

To have very realistic wind mode you can use speed tree

 

Where do i get their wind system? Is it included in some pack of theirs?

 

Tools->Wind Wizard

Also you can change the wind from SpeedTree shader inside unity

 

Hey guys, i found exactly what i was looking for to show you. Its what i have in mind (graphics quality):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lLN4lPfYFkp0cX4krOcw0RHD5f237lJy/view

It uses layered materials (photogrammetry + classic texturing) through the HDRP in Unity 2018.1 to bring this quality playable to the mainstream computer. In their project they use a new shader (LayeredLit) that does the layering combined with all other elements (post-process, lighting etc).

I just don't know yet what other maps the materials have (normal, height, ao, displacement?) etc. I'm gonna examine a bit now.

 

It seems that LayerLit is used for props like rocks and just Lit for foliage. I have no further idea what happens in there, i havent used such a complex shader again.

 

Does anyone know where to get the grass texture from his post:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/best-terrain-vegetation-asset-shader.519660/#post-3421380

 

Looks like Unreal Engine.