Dank: Foliage - Update - Vegetation Studio support plus more.

Now on the Unity Asset Store​

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you about our newest asset getting released to the asset store, "Dank: Foliage". It has been submitted to the Asset Store and is simply waiting review.

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"Dank: Foliage" is an advanced foliage layout, modeling, and texturing workflow that allows users can create an infinite variety highly customized and configurable plant life ranging from grass, bushes and flowers to tree leaf clusters and toppers.​

"Dank: Foliage" brings together a collection of textures, materials, meshes, and mesh modifications tools into a clean and simple to use interface that allows you to combine, alter, and deform the base meshes, assign materials, bake wind data, and stamp out finalized foliage prefabs that use an optimized mesh and texture atlas to increase performance and reduce draw calls.

Major Features​

Clean, Simple and Intuitive UI and Workflow

We feel that UIs should be as simple and straight forward to use and almost guide you through the process of using the tool without you having to refer to a step by step guide like its a piece of IKEA furniture. With that in mind "Dank: Foliage" features a completely custom UI designed to make creating new foliage both intuitive and easy.
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Mesh Library

35 meshes and counting
One of the biggest things when creating new foliage is the underlying meshes used to create them. Having a wide variety of good meshes is the foundation of creating beautiful looking flowers and plants and is why we have included an extensive collection of meshes, in a variety of categories, for you to build your foliage with.

New base meshes are being added frequently upon tester request.
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Material Library

120 Grass/Flower/Leaf/Branch Textures with matching distance field textures
32 Custom Hi-Res Mask Textures (Available as separate download to help with update times.)
The single most important thing to getting started making great foliage is your textures and materials. Dank Foliage comes packed with an extensive collection of textures and materials covering grasses, leafs, flowers, and tree branches to get you started making amazing foliage quickly.
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Mesh Modification Tools

"Dank: Foliage" comes with a wide collection of mesh modification tools built right into the editor allowing you to alter, deform, and tweak the base meshes to fit your exact needs and desires.

Current Modifiers: Adjust Normals, Linear Repeater, Move Rotate Scale, Radial Repeater, Recalculate, Twist Deformer, Vertex Color, Vertex Jitter, Vertex Weld, Triangular Subdivision, Value Baker

For full information on all the modifiers check out the documentation. Many more modification tools are on there way as well.

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Custom Foliage Shaders

Dank Foliage includes a highly customizable set of foliage shaders with many unique features. Stylized leaves, translucency, vivid glowing patterns, an edge glow based on a custom distance field system that allows you to bake distances for your own leaf textures -- even a special Debug shader that lets you visualize wind, UVS, normals, and more as colors. Our goal is nothing less than the craziest, most colorful foliage shaders in the world.

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Texture Mask Generation

"Dank: Foliage" can generate black and white texture masks from your base textures with just a couple clicks. These texture masks can be used in a variety of ways, but are most important when generating distance field textures.
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Atlas Generation

While having amazing looking foliage is great its still important to minimize the number of different textures and materials being used on a foliage as much as possible to reduce the number of draw calls. Thats why we have included a basic version of our upcoming atlas generator which can stamp your foliages down to a single mesh and material instead of multiple sub-meshes and materials.
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Distance Field Texture Generation
Distance Fields are what allow the foliage shaders to produce their edge glow effect, and thus are very important when creating foliage that you wise to use that effect on. Dank Foliage can generate Distance Field textures from any texture in your project that utilizes the alpha field as a cutoff.

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Spoiler: Videos

Asset Compatibility
"Dank: Foliage" produces standard game object, mesh and material assets meaning that the foliage you produce should be with your favorite assets that accepts objects, meshes and materials.

Dank Foliage is compatible with Vegetation Studio instanced and instanced indirect systems.

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Examples made in "Dank: Foliage"

Spoiler: More Videos

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Well, that is "Dank: Foliage" in a nutshell. There is more to it then this, and much more in the works, but I figured this was a good introductory post. I hope you all like what you see.

I have included the documentation (its a work in progress) attached to the post for you all to peruse at your leisure.

Ill be working on finishing up the website and putting together some videos of actual usage of the tool over the next couple of days and post those up as they are finished.

As always, questions, comments and critiques are always appreciated.


Jason
Discord: https://discord.gg/S9UdJ77

 

Hey Everyone,


I put together a quick demonstration video of creating a new foliage from scratch. In this video I create a quick little plant. The rest of the post is just some sexy "eye candy". Later today or tomorrow ill post an update on the fixes and changes.

Also one or two more beta testers never hurt if anyone would like to PM me

As always, questions, comments, feedback is always appreciated.

Jason
Discord: https://discord.gg/S9UdJ77

 

I'm the guy making the shaders and taking most of these screenshots.

Here's a few more:



I have a ton more but this forum thinks they're too big to attach so I guess I gotta figure something out for that.

 

So one more round of photos for the night, well morning now, before I am off to bed.

Sample foliage created in the demonstration video + basic post processing profile.


Scatter tool that comes with "Dank: Foliage"



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Just some beautiful eye candy i made while playing with "Dank: Foliage" and the shader tonight.

Jason
Discord: https://discord.gg/S9UdJ77

 

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to let the testers know who are not in the discord that the latest test build is up.

Not a tester? Want to be? Stop by the discord and i can setup you up, can always use more testers.


And because no post is complete without some dank sexy eye candy.

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Jason
Discord: https://discord.gg/S9UdJ77

 

Looks nice. Keep it up

 

More glowing leaves.

 

Quite cool-looking stuff there! -- I can see this working really well for something like Vegetation Studio!

I know the rave community would be quite pleased with this, @brisingre!

 

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to stop by and show off some more beautiful eye candy.

The first two images are some examples of the control you have over things with the shaders.

The 5 leaves in the first image, and the 2 leaves in the second image are all from the same original base texture.

The flower in the second image just looked cool, and who doesnt like cool looking things.

The final image is a shader showing Wind Data baked to a mesh from the "Value Baker" modifier in dank foliage.

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As always any and all feedback, questions or comments are appreciated.
If your interested in helping during the last bit of testing, feel free to stop by the discord and say hi.

Jason
https://discord.gg/S9UdJ77

 

Hey Everyone,

So i post lots of eye candy, but i don't to often post much about the development of "Dank: Foliage" and the changes and improvements that are going on. So here is a list of the changes, bug fixes, and improvements that have happened since Tuesday evening.

Selected Button Color has been changed to not match the header color, and can be edited from the settings window.

• Auto-Save has been added. You can turn it on and off, and adjust the autosave timer (in minutes) from the settings panel.
• New/Load Schematic, Save, and Save as menu options have been removed from under file and put on the main toolbar.
• Fixed issue where loading a schematic did not cause it to render, so the preview window showed nothing until your edited the schematic, or toggled a part on and off. This has been fixed.
• Going back to the new/load screen now refreshes the list of local schematics.
• When editing a part - Clicking on a mesh now swaps the mesh with the current part. Holding shift adds a new parts. Previously it was the other way around.
• Added delete button to main part list
• Mouse Cursor changes to horizontal resize icon when you are inside the resize zone now.
• Dank_Foliage_0_49.unitypackage has been uploaded
• Fixed an issue with unsaved files, auto-save, and canceling the save file dialog that caused some errors to pop up.
• Fixed the autosave settings not showing up in the settings panel
• Dank_Foliage_0_50.unitypackage has been uploaded to the shared google drive
• Fixed bug with Value baker where it was not adding entries to channels if they didnt not already have entries. This resulted in the values not being baked.
• Bug Fix - Stamping a foliage over an existing prefab no longer breaks any instances of that prefab. It now properly updates the original instead of creating a new one.
• UI Improvement - Dragging the vertical resize no longer stops the preview area from rendering its preview.
• Fix/Improvement - Shaders now show up in their own category in the shader context menu instead of the root drop down.
• Fix - Extreme lag in the preview window has vanished as mysteriously as it appeared. I will claim i fixed this despite doing nothing.
• Bug Fix - Warning message after deleting the installer should no longer be triggered now as the folders .meta file is deleted with the folder.
• Bug Fix - Auto - save timer no longer lets you enter 0 in as a value. 1 is the minimum.
• Improvement - re-ordered the main toolbar at the top
• bug fix - pressing New/Load schematic while editing a schematic no longer produces an error.
• bug fix - deleting a part now properly causes the schematic to refresh.
• bug fix - removed ExportPath from the settings panel for now till a custom inspector is written. Export Path can be set from the stamp panel.
• UI improvement - Mesh Preview panel toolbar items now all have proper tooltips.
• bug fix - The default stamp path is now appropriately within the system project. Previously it was a system path inside the project, which caused errors on stamping if a path was not set first.
• bug fix - Fields in the modifier editor should no longer retain focus when switching between parts.
• Usability improvement - Right clicking on a part now has the "Add as provider W mat" option. This option adds creates a new part as the old part with the provider, and ALSO sets the new parts material to match the old part.

So there are the major improvements and changes since Tuesday. Little bit later day ill post up the updated documentation as well.

As always questions, comments, and feedback are appreciated, and feel free to stop by our discord.

Jason
Discord: https://discord.gg/S9UdJ77

 

Hey Everyone,

So as promised here are some screenshot from the updates going into the documentation. They are looking really good,
@brisingre has put in a lot of effort making them look nice, uniform, and provide quality information.







As always questions, comments, and feedback are appreciated, and feel free to stop by our discord.

Jason
Discord: https://discord.gg/S9UdJ77

 

So: It seems we're for sale on the asset store a little prematurely.

Unity went live with a very old version instead of waiting for our update.

If you have purchased Dank:Foliage, please get in touch on the 630 Studios Discord. We'll be happy to fix you up with the current version so you don't have to wait till next week when Unity approves the update.

https://discord.gg/Nsgpkdx

 

Update:
The appropriate package has been pushed through and is now live on the asset store.

"Dank: Foliage" is currently on an introductory sale for $42.00 until the middle of next week when the next update goes out, at which point the price will be $66.00.


If you would like access to the beta builds please stop by our discord and shoot me a PM with your invoice number.

 

Update:

It has been brought to my attention that you need the latest version of blender for the mesh files to load since i provided them as native .blend files.
I was unaware unity used an external dependency on blender to actually load them, and it appears that all of us, and everyone testing had blender installed so the problem did not show up till now.

I will be converting all the meshes to .obj and uploading a new package today. If you are experiencing this issue and do not want blender installed on your machine contact me in our Discord with your invoice number, and I will get set you up with access to the beta builds.

New videos and images will be coming in today as well

 

Hey everyone,

@brisingre was kinda enough to spend some time creating some custom masks that could be used on the foliage emission field (or anywhere else you want some cool masks).

Texture Masks



Examples Mask Usage






Don't forget to pick up "Dank: Foliage" now while it is on sale for a limited time ( $42.00 instead of $66.00).​

Once you have purchased Dank: Foliage make sure to stop by our discord to get the latest versions and and these nice hi-res masks (the masks are almost 200megs, we did not want to make people have to download those each time).

Questions, comments, and feedback is always appreciated.

Jason
Visit us on Discord

 

As promised here is the first of several videos to come. This one is an updated demonstration of creating a new foliage since the UI went through some changes. It also shows off several of the more common mesh modifiers.

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As always questions, comments and feedback is always appreciated.

Jason
Visit us on Discord

 

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that version 1.2 of Dank Foliage is being uploaded to the asset store for review today.

Version 1.2 brings lots of bug fixes, general UI improvements, lots new features, and also signifies the end of the introductory sale. When version 1.2 goes live Dank Foliage will be going from 42.00 to $69.00. So if you have not picked up Dank Foliage, now is the time to do so before the next version goes live.

If you purchase or already own Dank Foliage and would like early access to version 1.2 please contact me either via PM here on the forums, or via our Discord Server

Dank Foliage - Asset Store

Version 1.2 New Major Features

Vegetation Studio Support​

Everyone loves Vegetation Studio, and now you can use your flowers, bushes, and other foliage created in Dank Foliage in Vegetation Studio. All shaders now properly support Vegetation Studios instanced and instanced indirect allowing you to create amazing scenes quickly.

Atlas Generator​

While having amazing looking foliage is great its still important to minimize the number of different textures and materials being used on a foliage as much as possible to reduce the number of draw calls. That's why we have included a basic version of our upcoming atlas generator which can stamp your foliage down to a single mesh and material instead of multiple sub-meshes and materials.

Screenshot Tool​

What fun is creating amazing and beautiful things if you can't share pictures of it? That is just one of the reasons we have included the basic version of our Screenshot Tool. The other is to facilitate cyclic content generation. You can use Dank foliage to create a very detailed and complex foliage, and then use the screenshot tool to capture out image to use as textures on less complex billboard setups allowing you to continually expand you own texture library.

Poly Doodle Free - Shape, Path, and Spline editing + extrusion​

2D Shapes, 2D & 3D splines are a big part of some of the upcoming features for Dank Foliage, so we have included a basic version of our upcoming shape editor tool to make interacting with these things easier. The shape editor tool allows you to draw shapes, and 2D splines and save them for use in Dank Foliage modifiers that require shapes and paths. The shape editor also allows you to export you drawings as planar meshes as well as several other cool features.

Branch Meshes​

Dank Foliage now includes several branch/stem meshes to help round out the mesh collection and help you get started creating flowers, bushes, and tree branches more easily.


Join us on our Discord Server

Thanks,
Jason

 

Hey Everybody,

Just wanted to go over on of the tools being included in the new package pending review, the Screenshot Tool.

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The screenshot tool does exactly what it sounds like, Helps you take screenshots of your foliage.

The screenshot tool allows you to toggle between perspective and orthographic views, and attempts to initially frame your foliage in the cameras view for you, after which you can adjust it however you like.

The screenshot tool features buttons to allow you to quickly rotate the camera around the target object by specific amounts, as well as reset the view back to its original settings.

You are able to control the resolution of the outputted image as well.

There are currently two types of screenshots you can capture.
A single shot, which allows you to select the destination and filename for the image as well as a Y360 mode which rotates the camera 360 around the target object in increments you specify which is particularly useful for generating billboards.

Upcoming features for the tool include generating atlas's from your screenshots, and full billboard capturing and generation.


Hope everyone has a nice day,
As always questions, comments or feedback is always appreciated.

Jason

 

I've been looking for a tool to create custom foliage for a while and this looks like what I was hoping to find. One question that I have is can it (or will it be possible in the future) randomize certain elements? The Vertex Jitter function seems like it can add some variety to plants, but looking at the Creating a new Foliage video, it seems like the repeater creates uniform patterns. Can you do things like have random variations in each's leaf's size (maybe even individual variation per axis) and rotation?

 

Hey @Hitch32

Thanks for your interest in Dank Foliage. Currently you would have to achieve what you are looking for by place individual elements one at a time by hand (tedious i know). The next version of Dank Foliage due out in a week or so brings parametrics, and expressions to Dank Foliage. These new features will allow you to do exactly what you want much easier as you can set any of the properties on a modifier to be an expression, and expressions have full access to random functionality. The new version will also feature a redesigned UI which should make using the tool much easier, as well as a host of other features. Feel free to stop by our discord, we are usually around and happy to answer any questions.

Discord: https://discord.gg/S9UdJ77