SpeedTree Joins Unity!

SpeedTree Joins Unity – SpeedTree

I wonder if those assets will be free to use in our projects... that would be "Epic"!

 

lol. Hopeful, but yeah can't kid me, that's wishful thinking.

 

"For now, nothing will change for SpeedTree or Unity customers."

Maybe Unity did this preemptively to deny the aquisition to their competitor, so they can't give their users free trees.

 

I dont think so. From what I heard Quixel is working on its own tree solution.

 

Unless my timelines are off, Unity bought Bolt in May 2020 and then around July 2020 is when Bolt become apart of "all Unity plans" so maybe in a few months SpeedTree will be free to use for Unity projects.

Thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised to see it only be offered in Plus + Pro plans like how they used to offer assets monthly as part of the subscription.

 

Dot dot dot

 

Great News!

...or, actually I guess it's mildly good news...

...I mean, not for me, but for people making a game with lots of trees...

...well not now, though, but maybe in a year or two from now...

 

QUIXEL JOINS FORCES WITH EPIC GAMES
MEGASCANS BECOMES FREE FOR USE WITH UNREAL ENGINE
MEGASCANS SUBSCRIPTION PRICES LOWERED FOR EVERYONE
BRIDGE AND MIXER 2020 WILL BE 100% FREE FOR EVERYONE

vs

SpeedTree® creator Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV) joins Unity
For now, nothing will change for SpeedTree or Unity customers.

Maybe make some plans beforehand and announce with a splash?

 

This is exactly the problem I've been sayin for awhile now. Unreal buys something, gives a great incentive to use their product. Unity buys something and what happens? "Pay up bruh". lol.

EDIT:
I mean I understand nothing in life is free, but SpeedTree is a rather big deal. Maybe not as big as Megascans, but it's pretty up there in terms of something truly great and could really help Unity. But incentives is the key here. There's no incentives really about Unity other than ease of use. (too me at least). Unity buys this and that, focuses on things lately that have nothing to do with game-dev (Arch-Viz, etc). It would just be nice to see Unity and Unreal really go head-to-head and compete for customers by finally incentivizing migration to Unity. Sure SpeedTree alone wouldn't do that, but it's a step.

 

Big deal to me as I use the ST modeler to make my own trees. What I want to see is better integration with the render piplines. Even with standard, the ST shaders are not very good. I have been asking for while when then would be fixed..like years. I now use the Vegetation Engine for shaders and it works fine. I would also like to see improvements in fade. As long as I can have my modeler, I will happy, but some long awaited improvements would make me very happy.

 

This has probably been the only acquisition I'm excited about! Though I'm disappointed to see practically nothing is different besides a change of hands.

Hopefully moving forward the illusive "Tree" component moves out of the shadows, and will no longer be a black box. Rendering SpeedTree models through the graphics API while retaining full wind functionality has been close to impossible, since it requires trial and error reverse engineering. So I'm hoping for more transparency, or easier integration.

Still, it won't be allowed to redistribute any SpeedTree authored assets outside of a game. This has always been a showstopper for asset store creators. Seeing as the best tool for creating vegetation is basically not a viable option because of this. Since it's in Unity's domain now, I expected them to at least make an exception on this front, it would only increase the adoption rate in the long term.

 

Well at least there's no more excuses for "we'll get around to adding that speed tree update someday..."

 

Speed Tree has never worked as promised in Unity... it's been 5 or 6 years at this point and it still is left half integrated. Will anything change after this? I sure hope so but call me skeptical.

 

Well, they are working, will see how far they will go with the integration. I hope they won't stop at a bunch of custom shaders.

 

(After they were shamed by the community)

 

So... still spotty and lacking SpeedTree support in Unity? Gotcha.

 

Does that mean the speedtree editor will become free? Or what exactly does it mean?

 

It means exactly what they put in the blog "For now, nothing will change for SpeedTree or Unity customers.".
In reality it most likely means hey we bought SpeedTree team, now we will get your subscription fees and in return you'll get functional trees.

 

What if their plans are not positive for the community though?

For example, if I was planning to raise subscription prices, this is the announcement I would make and then I would raise the prices stealthily at some later date.

 

eeeh. . . this is unity we are talking about, i'll hold my excitement. . . .

 

Could be amazing in terms of adding value to the engine if made free (and if it finally works properly in unity for first time in years, using latest speed tree).

If not, it just adds more fuel to the unreal value fire that is burning

 

If anything, then the editor could be free. The trees definitely won't.

 

You mean like how Bolt was free when it was initially bought up by Unity? Oh, wait...

On a more serious note here's hoping but I wouldn't hold my breath for it to be cheaper or improved.

 

It's so unfortunate that we even feel this way. Almost seems rather neglected don't it?

 

I use the speedtree to unreal modeler a lot and the price is fair.

If anything about that gets messed with I'll say unkind things.

 

Unreal are already making their own tree solution at quixel, so even if it gets harder or more expensive to use speedtree in unreal it shouldn't matter for too much longer. As always unreals solution will be free to users as they value keeping their customers over draining money from them short term.

 

Today I learned SpeedTree has only ten employees. You would think with how much money they made over the years that they would have had more than that.

https://80.lv/articles/unity-acquires-the-developer-of-speedtree/

 

Explains why we've been hearing about Speed Tree 9 for years and still isn't out yet lol.

 

that is interesting, i havent heard but will go look now. But speedtree is still the mature and exisiting solution for the time being.

 

they have no real competition, I think.

 

Why? What do they do which would benefit from more than that?

 

What does this actually mean for the Unreal Engine modeler? I purchased a lot of SpeedTree 8 just do be independent of the engine. Did I just get dependent?

 

If this community is any indication they could stand to have more quality assurance.

Edit: In fact here is the list of employees at the company. Half of the staff is business-oriented. Out of the other half we have two programmers (assuming Chris King is a programmer otherwise we have ONE programmer) and three artists. Clearly they rely heavily on outsourced work.

https://www.signalhire.com/companies/speedtree-idv-inc/employees

 

I was under the impression that the issues were more to do with engine integration than with the base product itself?

Anyway, considering that it's a reasonably well defined product which relies on expertise rather than scale a small team doesn't surprise me on principle. Though two programmers is indeed smaller than I'd expect!

 

One thing to note is that the Cinema SpeedTrees are way superior in diversity compared to the Game SpeedTrees. I hope that diversity translates now to Game as well.

 

After speedtree assets are made to "just work" on all render pipelines, I'd like to see the ability to modify wind settings in unity, as opposed to having to use the modeller to update the wind settings.

 

You would hope it mean that unity is finally able to work on a proper vegetation terrain system, but that's scifi i know.

 

This could be the start of a push to do exactly that, lets hope so!

 

Think it's the same ratio of 'support workers' to programmers at Unity, per the lightbulbs?

 

I doubt they have any nefarious intents, but it seems to me that Unity's acquisitions are more business oriented than technical. Sure, it's loosely related to what Unity is doing, like Plastic SCM where nothing has changed either, but they're probably solid businesses that run at a profit which seems to be what Unity is after.

 

It's just business - companies like Unity, Adobe, Epic snap up middleware so that it won't be made unavailable, and they can satisfy certain markets easier.

Unity's ambitions presently are film first, as evidenced by even a casual glance at budgets, and speedtree is used in film a lot. I don't expect any change other than HDRP compatibility (funny how it happened recently).

I also don't think this is a bad move nor do I feel sour about it. Seems business as usual and has helped speedtree gain financial security.

Mtree (not tried it) on asset store looks promising for most indies too, plenty of choice really. I don't believe it's necessary to drop kick Unity in the face just yet.

Hopefully we'll be able to have a nice integration at some point and a focus on vegetation optimisations etc!

 

I have been using Speedtrees all along. I use Vegetation Engine for shaders and it seems to work fine for me. So I will happy if it basically stays the same. I will keep paying for my modeler until they tell me I cannot do so.

 

Your strategy of using Vegetation Engine + Speedtree is a winning one, I think. I would expect you to give Unity a long stare and make more trees available to you somehow though.

Hey Unity, how about a bonus free Tree Pack for the Unity community, and a blog post to tell everyone, while reminding the world Speed Tree and Unity are now best buds forever?

This is how you get the community to enjoy your acquisitions btw, Unity. Surely you realise the smarts of this, right? ;-)

 

Hmm, it is a thought. I make my own trees from the modeler, although I buy ST to use the textures. Moving to a new house next week but if I squeeze in a post, I will try.

 

@hippocoder - in fact what they should do is do like SpeedTree already does for their users - once a month get a free tree pack. I'd be completely satisfied with that if nothing else even changes. Not just one time, but every month. Like a Tree and a bush, doesn't have to be a pack of 20 trees lol.Just a couple items that match the same biome - (Tree and Plant) or (Tree and Sapling) or (Tree and Seedling). Or a (tree, sapling and seedling) that way consistency stays.

 

Good point, I generally snatch the textures up too LOL. Just so convenient hahah. We don't all live in an environment to photoscan our own realistic tree bark, etc or even have the means to do so.

 

I would "settle" with:

1. Awesome integration of Speedtree in Unity. Speedtree for Unity always felt like a second (third... fourth?) class citizen. Now would be the time to change that. It should be consistent, play well with all Unity features, no breakage when new Unity versions arrive. <- Although this is a standard that even many Unity features fall short, so I don't know how feasible it is.

2. Free for Unity users, or a price drop for Unity users. Maybe cheap for Personal, but included for free in Plus / Pro? <- Pretty sure there is a combination here that is beneficial for users and also makes sense financially.

 

That is pretty much how I use ST store. I do not buy entire packs, just one tree here or there and then use the modeler to make more trees. I will be very disappointed if we can longer buy single trees. The entire packs are very expensive and I do not need all of them. Please, single trees, not large packages as many of us already have STs and do not need doubles. I have purchased a lot of small single trees.....so trust me I spend money on these.

 

I have used ST from before Unity 5 until now...with many Unity updates. My ST always worked..after Unity 5 shaders did not work well, but I found alternatives. Vegetation Engine makes is so you do not need to worry about the shaders anymore. I can update Unity without a problem.

I am more than willing to keep paying a sub for modeler and buying trees. However, not going to help move people from Unreal to Unity if ST is reserved for free to pro license while Unreal gives it all for free. I do not care really though. lol

 

Moving to three acres of prime NYC area woodlands..so....I guess I need to learn to photoscan. You should see the rocks in my backyard. Lovely glacial eratics.