SpeedTree for Unity

They said in the thread that it was baked trees from the Quixel store using the new custom render loop; nothing to do with SpeedTree at all unfortunately.

 

Yeah wow, just dug this up!

https://forum.unity.com/threads/book-of-the-dead.512912/#post-3361442

 

I know there still isnt Unity-specific news but with the UE4 version of SpeedTree announced recently and a beta of the UE4 modeller available for windows I shall probably evaluate things using that engine.

And it pleases me to see that they have somewhat changed their model of selling trees. It looks like you buy Speedtree 8 trees for games in one format, and then use the relevant speedtree modeller to export in a format appropriate for your game engine. There is also a free 'export only' modeller mode that facilitates this export format stuff without needing a modeller subscription.

And despite the lack of Unity-specific news, Unity 2018 is at least listed as TBD when you look at these new trees in their store, eg:

 

They used photogrammetry and hand modeling for those, but we've got an alpha build handed off to the Unity team to test the new integration! There's a lot of moving parts with the upcoming SRP and we want to be sure everything is ready.

 

Looks great.

 

Does this asset work with the new Scripting Rendering Pipelines?

 

I have a question.

As the SpeedTrees LODs are given to me from 0-100% - how would i know what distance 100% is.

I can see speedtrees not culled far away, even behind hills, and i don't know why they aren't culled properly.

 

Hi Guys,

How do you get a tree into unity that has been setup from scratch i.e an non sample or downloaded tree?

Am I missing something, I can happily save a .spm file and edit it all day in Speedtree modeller but it's not recognised by Unity engine when I drag it into the scene from the project.
I just get the file displaying as the white paper icon and not the speedtree icon in the project which tells me something's up. Is there an export or set up process I'm missing, I'm struggling to find any documentation on the pipeline so any help would be greatly appreciated.

R.

 

Found the error I was looking for, I get this when I first import the model to the project.



I'm using the correct Unity modeller and have successfully tweaked and edited numerous trees before now and have them in this project.

R.

 

Talking to myself here but for those interested you need to have a material on all the elements in the model to get it to export the .spm file in the correct format, or so it seemed to be in this case.

 

I just read this:

https://store.speedtree.com/speedtree-gdc-2018/

May I ask if there is an ETA known yet? I'm eagerly awaiting this. 2018 is awesome and the one thing I don't like are the blurry speedtrees

 

@Held0fTheWelt LODs are based on the use of screenspace in regards to the camera. 100% means the tree is filling up the height or width completely or more. When you are up close looking at the trunk of a tree it's actually more like 1,500%. Culling will likewise turn the tree renderer's off when below 5% or 1% or whatever you've setup, screenspace. Meaning on a 1920x1040 display, if at 1% it won't render when using less than roughly 10 pixels (height). Unity does not automatically use occulsion culling (culling things behind hills/walls etc) but can be setup to if your scene is static.

@me-not-you you need to "Save as with assets..." to export the tree as a single package for use in Unity. Make a SpeedTrees folder in your project and just save as with assets directly to that.

 

@Dannyoakes

Hi,

I have a question about the SpeedTree 8 and Unity SRP.

Any news about the current status of implementation? Especially for the HDRP pipeline. Any chance that it will be available for Unity 2018.2 or 2018.3?

I'm asking about the SpeedTree 8 modeler (subscription) with Unity export, SpeedTree 8 'export-only' version for Unity and the HDRP pipeline support (dedicated HDRP SpeedTree shaders that would work with SpeedTree 8 objects etc.).

BTW. Do you want to support built-in pipeline with SpeedTree 8 or maybe it will be LRP/HDRP exclusive?

Thanks.

 

Over two years since that post about PBR textures being "just on the horizon"... :|

 

It was a very distant horizon. Maybe an event horizon.

 

That would fit with the reply from over a year ago that my worry about them waiting another year before releasing PBR because of the Amazon exclusivity was "not even close to true". Maybe he meant that it was actually a near-infinite wait

 

Back in the spring at GDC, there were some comments made on Twitter which suggested that getting ST8 for Unity required Unity to make some changes to the terrain engine, and at that time they hinted that they were talking to Unity about that for later this year. I was given the impression that it wouldn't be in time for 2018.1 (which at that time was still a month from release) but that it was likely for 2018.2. Not only did that not happen, but Speedtree has gone completely silent on the matter and aren't even responding to questions on their own site. The Unity roadmap doesn't show anything coming in 2018.3 or anytime beyond. Actions speak louder than words, and Speedtree's actions suggest that they've abandoned the platform. That's unfortunate, I really enjoy using the modeler.

 

I acted already and stopped buying speedtree assets. They look just fugly now with Unity 2018. And overpriced.

I tried to make a corn field with the July 2018 bonus content. It became a blurry mess, not state of the art anymore. And the tree of the bonus content, I don't want to use it even though it's free. It's just ugly.

It's a shame though, the Unreal trees look really awesome. However, buying anything Speedtree 7 related is a waste of money. And without any information when Speedtree 8 will be available for Unity, I have to look for alternatives now.

 

There is a comment about the SpeedTree 8 integration on the official blog. Great to see that!



https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/07/16/stay-up-to-date-with-the-unity-roadmap/

 

Hmm! Sounds like the LDR / HDR versions of SpeedTree?

 

Thanks for the response, @Arisa, though considering how far behind Speedtree was (ST8 was already out for Unreal Engine back at GDC) it's a shame that Unity did not make that support a priority for 2018.2.

 

Unity updated the roadmap:

https://unity3d.com/unity/roadmap

 

Hi, I just got the $20/mo modeler subscription so I could use the growth wizard and make animations, but nothing happens when I click it and the "Growth" checkbox doesn't show up on Timeline. Is it not included in the subscription? How can I access it?

 

There is a new blog post on the SpeedTree website. SpeedTree 8 for Unity will be released on January 22.

https://store.speedtree.com/speedtree-in-2019/

 

Whoa, hey, it's been a minute.

We've released the SpeedTree 8 for Unity modeler, if you have an active subscription it should be available now. We'll have more news coming in the next few weeks about the integration and HDRP/LWRP support. I've updated the first post with the basics.

Have fun!

 

Awesome! I've seen there is a tree sale on your site. How long will the sale last?

 

The sale will last until Friday, January 25th, 6 pm!

 

Just a heads up, this is Kat ^^^ She joined SpeedTree a year ago and will be around to help answer any questions!

 

I just purchased a lot of v8 speedtrees. What I didn't think of: Will these work later in HDRP as well or do I have to purchase them again?

 

@KatLeeHong @Dannyoakes When are you going to update your packages to Speedtree 8 on the asset store?

 

There are critical things that need urgent fixing imo. I posted that on the ST forum, but also post it here before other users waste their time as well:

* Batch export is required. I purchased lots of trees and wasted my time yesterday with manual exports only to find out I have to do it all again

* When you export a tree, the hue color is set to orange. It should be configurable so that at least hue alpha is set to 0

* Some of the tree textures have the same name, e. g. there's Bark_1_Color for both Birch and Willow. In the end the Willow will look like a Birch if you export in that order into a common SpeedTree folder. There should be an option to export into dedicated folders which will be automatically created (e. g. depending on the tree name). One maybe more convenient suggestion (haven't thought much about it) would be to have the .st file and then the same name as a folder with all the other data that belong to it. This way you could still store all the .st files in one single folder.

Either way, ST8 is super awesome

 

Sounds great. @Dannyoakes poke me when there's changes so I can propagate the right advice around forum for you

 

Are photogrammetry tools something that you could reconsider for subscription modeler?
I was really hyped for v8.2 (now 8.3), only to be let down by noticing it's not included on indie friendly offerings ($999/year deal is pretty steep).

 

Yep, We're working on HDRP support. Right now, they will work in HDRP, but you lose wind effects and have to set up the material manually. We'll have a blog post about this coming up soon with a workaround.

I'll take these suggestions to the dev team!

Will do, thanks!

No plans at the moment for this, I'm afraid.

 

Hey everyone,

I wrote a quick little writeup for using SpeedTree with the HDRP. We also have a download on this blogpost to write out textures that support HDRP, even though we don't have a supported shader.

Follow the link below to check it out!

https://store.speedtree.com/the-state-of-the-speedtree-unity-hdrp-pipeline/

 

I really like the quality of the v8 trees. And the modeler is awesome. New tree variations are generated in no time via the random button. And you can even make abstract ones like e. g. doorway to Elf-Land or sth

 

Just tried that. It's pretty much straightforward. Although there seems to be a bug, somehow I get black spots. eg see the bottom bark of the willow has 2 of them:


And the subsurface Map isn't always generated. Should it be? I got it for the broadleaf which came as example. But not for the birch, neither for the willow.

 

@Dannyoakes Since photogrammetry tools are not on the table, I looked at the custom mesh import approach and I don't think it quite works right. Basically I end up with same issue as the person on this thread (and nobody gave a solution there):
https://forum.speedtree.com/forum/s...peedtree-modeler/4499-v8-14-custom-mesh-trunk

Issue here is that every branch attached to custom mesh (Megascans trunk in this case) points to only one direction, I haven't found any setting that would place these in radial manner around the trunk mesh.

Also, since the welding is not possible to "Zone", why Speedtree even tries to do that for the next level branches you attach to it? (sure, you can just go toggle it off but would be logical for to just disable welding out of the box for new node in such place)

Note: I tested this on 8.1.4 LY modeler just to see if this workflow is feasible, I don't know if 8.3 brought improvements on custom meshes or fixes for this particular issue.

 

I can't help it, but SpeedTree 8 is awesome. No more ST7 blurryness. Check out the trees to the left and the right. Although in distance, still a crisp bark. Standard, no hdrp

 

Texture quality makes a huge difference! We built a surface scanner to capture bark and leaf meshes at very high resolutions

 

@Dannyoakes I'm confused about all the SpeedTree variations. I currently mostly buy the packages rather than single trees. Sometimes altough when the package doesn't fit me, I go for single tree variations. The question is: What's the difference between Hero and Desktop? Should I go for Hero or Desktop for single trees? I thought I'd go for the best, i. e. Hero and convert the tree down to whatever performance preference I'd like to have. Is this a viable way or should I still go with a dedicated Destkop version of the tree?

And related I've just seen this post in another thread,

What exactly does this mean? There aren't enough v8 trees for games and the one thing I wanted most, i.e. the Sierra Redwood is unfortunately the one tree, that I don't like. You have to make it big in game and then you see its limits. Does that post mean I could have as well purchased the Cinema version and converted it down to Games Hero or Desktop?

Btw, how do you lower the polycount in the modeler the right way? Is there some documentation? And are there free Cinema trees for testing?

 

Hey Rowlan,

I'll try to answer your questions, but I think someone in our support email may have already helped? Here goes:

Hero vs Desktop:

This is primarily a polygonal budget distinction. Hero trees may be up to 30-40k triangles and are intended for use as a "hero" tree. Meaning the one tree you need to be highly detailed. Desktop trees are aimed at more common populated uses like creating forests or large scale environments.

Differences include lower detail cluster meshes, fewer leaves, and lower detail geometry.

A cinema tree is constructed differently, utilizing individual leaves or high poly meshes to create a model that can be anywhere from 100k to 6million triangles. It's primarily intended for VFX applications and also includes higher resolution texture maps.

Based on how you want to use the trees, I'd stick to the hero or desktop game trees, as they will produce the best results without needing to reconstruct the tree.

However, if you do want to reduce the polycount, some of the first places you want to look at are the radial and length segments in the branches and the number of triangles in the cluster meshes. Using the profile curves to taper off triangles can help preserve details in important areas.

I know Sarah is taking a look at our Redwood, but one problem you may be facing with it is just dissatisfaction with the textures. If you source a redwood texture from say, substance or Quixel, you can apply it to the tree inside of SpeedTree or even inside of Unity.

Also just as a heads up, we have some packs up on the Unity asset store here:

https://assetstore.unity.com/lists/speedtree-version-8-113815

Cheers!

 

Where exactly are these settings? Or do you have a link to the documentation? I've found the LOD doc. I've also found Simplify, but my modeler doesn't have that option. Is it the Accuracy setting in the Segments Tab of the Trunk Properties? This one:



Or do you mean Count in the Generation tab?

So when one has to decide about purchasing a single tree (I recommend the packages anyway) you suggest rather to go with Hero than with Desktop. Friend of mine purchased all Desktop because he thought it were better for a game. But in the long term I guess one should go with Hero for a single tree and convert to what's similar to Desktop with the Modeler.

Maybe for better understanding about my question: All I want is to load a tree, hit the randomize button and export it. And maybe reduce the polycount while I'm at it for performance, preferrably also at the change of settings which locations in the modeler I need to find

Yes, Sarah is looking into it, thank you. But honestly I'd have expected a tree that doesn't look like a low resolution texture patchwork and not that I have to purchase textures from 3rd party to make it look good It's the Redwood only from what I can tell. I purchased a lot of your v8 recently. The others are great. And great support btw! Very helpful and fast.

 

What is the advantage of moving to SpeedTree 8 from SpeedTree 7? Is rendering faster? Is there an advantage to reloading all my SpeedTree 7 trees and exporting them to SpeedTree 8 format?

 

The trees and their textures are better, so its a visual thing rather than a performance thing. I dont think there is any point converting SpeedTree 7 trees to SpeedTree 8 format unless you are also manually improving aspects of these trees at the same time.

 

Firstly it very much appreciated that speed tree included an HDRP texture packer for exporting trees for HDRP. The procedure is not so difficult to get a tree rendering correctly, although I would say that if you intended to export a version 7.0 be aware that if you using the free export service that it only contains one lod and one billboard although you will get the generated mask textures.

What I've been doing is simply using a decimator (mantis in my case) to create lod 1 lod 2 tree mesh which are pretty good and creating a prefab and making it work this way. Its not ideal as we don't have SRP speed tree shaders yet which would provide wind feature but at least its a start.

From a quality point of view I have had no complaints with speed tree version 7.0 trees when used with the ambient occlusion post process effect the depth in the trees is amazing. This blur im really not experiencing.

 

Hi there, has anyone experienced this problem and solved it with the Speedtree packages from the asset store?

Using Unity 2018.3.14f1 I created a Gaia terrain with the trees and there's some serious glitches, see the screenshot below. Next I created a new project with a plane and just dropped the trees on it with the same results.

Temperate Deciduous Forest Pack

 

I have been using ST 8 models I exported with SpeedTree Indie into Unity with no problem. I guess try your trees in a different Unity version to see if it is a problem with the Unity renderer, or with the trees themselves.

 

ST8 trees work fine and look great for me, but unfortunately Unity 2018.3 and 2018.4LTS manage to ignore the Speedtree collider info. I'd seen somewhere that the issue is resolved in 2019.1.x, but sure hope Unity brings that fix to 2018.4LTS - the virtual world I develop content for is compatible with that version, and probably won't have 2019.1 support for many months...

 

Hi, i have the same uv stretching glitches like Goodgulf in

Temperate Coniferous Forest Pack (v8)
Temperate Deciduous Forest Pack (v8)
Unity 2019.1.f2 and Unity 2019.2.f1 BuiltIn RP

Any ideas how to fix ? Tried several reimports and shader recompiles.