SpeedTree in Unity 5

Some information on how it will be implemented in Unity 5 as well at the UE4 implementation.

http://blog.speedtree.com/

 

Excellent, look forward to it.

 

This looks like it could be very cool. I wish they would put out a video showing the "smooth" LOD transitions.

 

excellent!

 

Really looking forward to this, I loved SpeedTree in Unreal 3..

 

ouch. The Unity version of the SpeedTree modeler is going to be $495 if you want to create your own models.

 

and the assets are expensive ($50 for a tree?.. really?)

 

Well they're going to allow users to create and sell assets on the Unity Asset Store so I'm guessing that's not going to be the case moving forward. And I'm betting Unity will provide some with their bundled assets as well since it's going to be available in both free and pro.

 

I hope so. The tech looks pretty cool, I just am a bit unclear about the editor.. if it is only for generating Unity assets (which I believe is the case), the $500 price tag seems a bit steep for me... but so are the tools for Houdini and Substance Designer; however, I can create assets in those for use in other DCC solutions and engines.

 

$500 pays for itself very quickly when you compare it to the cost of an artist creating fauna of the same quality without the tool. If you don't need custom trees then it really doesn't matter what it costs, eh?

 

Especially compared to it's previous 10K pricetag, guys speedtree is awesome.. If you need it buy it.

Another thing to get excited about in Unity 5.

I think it took me 30 minutes to figure out how it works / optimise and have it in Unreal. There's no way you can model trees and grass that quickly..

 

Very true.

 

The automatic billboarding looks kinda cool.. I wonder if the SpeedTree SDK will have C# wrappers for us to use?

 

Yeah I doubt many people are actually making their own custom trees anyway. Most people just buy pre made trees.

 

That's what I thought at first, and it is pretty expensive but after looking through the speedtree store I think a lot of those $50 trees have multiple variations in the same $50 package.

 

Normally, that should be one tree for 50$ and you can randomize that tree to get infinite other trees like that.

 

Hmm wonder if SideFX's Houdini Engine plugin supports L-system functionality in Unity. May not be as easy to use out of the box as speed tree modeler but it's much more flexible and doesn't cost $500 for just trees.

 

This looks very interesting. I wonder how it's going to be implemented however (this is coming from someone who hasn't watched the video yet).

 

Anyone know what the workflow for seasonal trees would be? Just swapping them out for different models?

 

You just change the textures Darkoi or different models like you said, if you want to test speedtree out see if you can find a version of UDK hanging about.

I will warn people though, Speedtree isn't the most performance enhanced product on the market. I probably would steer away for mobile games.

 

I don't know that much about Speedtree, and even less about the Unity integration, but I suspect it's either that or there'll be some way to modify the meshes/textures.