Unity Tree Billboard Bug!!! with Oculus UNITY WHAT IS GOING ON??

Oops, I should have written a while ago but I forgot - regarding the trees having a few clumps of leaves which you can rotate by moving your head around: I tried to get the billboarded leaf clumps in the trees to point towards the camera position instead of aligning with the look vector, but failed miserably. I don't know why - it was an easy problem to solve for the grass, but for some reason I couldn't get it to work with the leaves.

Anyway, a quick-fix that's not 100% ideal but gets rid of all the billboarding shenanigans completely (so that those leaf clumps don't rotate at all) is:

1) Make a copy of the SpeedTree.shader file (download builtin shaders from https://unity3d.com/get-unity/download/archive , SpeedTree shader is found in DefaultResourcesExtra/Nature). Put that copy anywhere in your Assets folder and it will automatically override the builtin ones.

2) Crack open the shader, find all the places it is defining the vertex shader as SpeedTreeVert and change it so it calls your own MySpeedTreeVert function instead, e.g. change all #pragma ... ... ... vertex:SpeedTreeVert .. ... to #pragma .. ... ... vertex:MySpeedTreeVert.

3) Grab the builtin SpeedTreeVert function (it's in builtin shaders/CGIncludes/SpeedTreeVertex.cginc), copy that function, paste it in your copy of SpeedTree.shader, rename the function to MySpeedTreeVert

4) look for the block that starts with "#elif defined(GEOM_TYPE_LEAF)", look for the comment "// face camera-facing leaf to camera" and comment out the lines under it (there are a few lines where it changes finalPosition - get rid of those).

Now those leaves don't follow nothin'.


OR talk about burying the lede, you can just grab my SpeedTree.shader file here: https://pastebin.com/QgAb5cE5 and throw it in your Assets folder somewhere. But my copy is super gross because it has a bunch of copied code (I have 4 copies of that MySpeedTreeVert function because I dumb), and you can see my pathetic fail attempts to have those billboards face the camera position (eventually all commented out). But it works. I think this is the Unity 5.6 version of the SpeedTree.shader ( might be 5.5 but I'm running 5.6 now and it works). I don't know if it'll work for other versions, but in that case you can "fix" it the way I described above.

Hope those instructions are vaguely understandable - it's way past my bedtime.

 

Finally!
This is included in the 2017.2 beta ?

 

Any update on this? Can we expect this to be fixed relatively soon? Thanks!

 

Do these fixes just affect the pure billboarded trees, or do they also affect the higher detail lod trees (which have some billboarded branch/leaf clusters)?

 

We are using unity 5.5.0p3 any chance this gets rolled back to these earlier versions?

 

@mikesf Hi Mike! Thank you for your efforts on Unity's Tree Creator. Would it be possible to backport the fix to 2017.1.0f3? We are close to our initial release and we are bound to this version of Unity.

 

How the heck can a bugfix be considered a feature? Some kind of bad joke? : /

 

@mikesf Thank you. I appreciate the attempt.

 

Yes, im really psyched that this is finally getting fixed for sure : )

 

Well SpeedTrees are pretty much unusable in VR right now (as of 2017.2) since they also contain billboarded parts that behave strangely in VR. Is there an improvement in the works for that?

Given that the quality of the SpeedTrees is otherwise pretty decent and given how Unity advertised natively integrated SpeedTree I don't really want to use another product.

 

You can disable billboard rotating if you have the editor (costs money)

 

Should be fixed now in 2017.3

 

Or 39:40 mark and skip a minute and a half of unprepared presenter.

 

in Unity 2017.2.1f1 leaves are still turning as your head turns, in VR.
not nice!

 

they said this was fixed on 2017.3 not on .2... check it out there

 

there is always a excuse to force people to update. this could have been a hotfix for 2017.2 but noo its better to force people to update and break their projects... much more funn...

 

I doubt a project working in 2017.2 will break when going to 2017.3. (mine didn't). You should just make a backup of your entire project directory and give it a go.

 

Projects do break A LOT from one update to the other. Right now I can't update to 2017.3 because they messed up WWW component and it's not fixed. So usually to be safe you wait for a few patch releases.

 

>>I doubt a project working in 2017.2 will break when going to 2017.3. (mine didn't).

Mine just did - stereo rendering in Cardboard went wonky when building to iOS in 2017.3 Reopened the same project in 2017.2 and it's still broken now.

 

What?!? You mean you:

• backed up your entire project directory
• updated unity
• opened your project in new unity
• closed new unity
• deleted project folder
• restored project folder from backup
• rolled back unity
• opened project

and it was broken? how can that be? there are no registry settings or anything, all project state is contained within the project directory.

 

Safe? from what potential loss?

I think if you make a project backup (whole directory and subs zipped somewhere) you can just roll back unity and open that if you need to.

I am under the impression all project state is contained within the project directory and its subs? I have been able to transfer a zipped project to a brand new computer, installed unity and the project works, what am I missing here?

 

No, I opened the project back up in 2017.2

I have a backup at work, but that means I will have to go in to get it - I never got VPN installed. We are off between Christmas and New Years so it's a bit of a pain. Was hoping to do some work at home. Thanks for pointing out that all state is within the project folder - that is good to know.

 

Glad to hear you got it backed up at work.

 

mmmm...so just to confirm I understood something: Speedtree adleaf_desktop tree is a speedtree object even if it's included in the Unity standard assets but it would still rotate leaves when rotating head in VR, right? What kind of realistic and not superkilling performance can we use then in our VR games without weird rotation issues?

 

Just make it a winter scene and don't use leaves!! Lol, jk

I really hope they are addressing this issue!

 

Thank you kritoa, your shader make my day !
No more billboarding shenanigans

I could successfully use it in Unity 2017.3 after overriding Shader uses for each Tree and LOD

 

Hi @mikesf,
for me it's working on oculus, using Unity 2017.4.3f1, but we are developing for PS4, and there it still have the same rotation problem. Any idea how to fix it for PSVR?

Thanks

 

Yoohoo I just found how to make it work
Go to quality settings
scroll down to other settings
change the LOD bias. I put LOD bias = 100. worked for me. the trees are no more displayed as billboard when you are just in front of them

 

Hi,

I added the missing part to Kritoas shader.
Billboard alignment should work fine in VR now (As far as possible)

You can find the complete shader here: https://pastebin.com/hUY6Njdi

Have fun....

@Unity & IDV:
Why can't you fix such issues?
The shader is from 2016. And yet noone cares about VR compatibility?
If you want users to buy your products, you should care about their requests.

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. //Pepe - modified part
3.     float offsetLen = length(finalPosition);
4.     //finalPosition = mul(finalPosition.xyz, (float3x3)UNITY_MATRIX_IT_MV); //old camera facing (orients to view matrix, bad!!)
5.  
6.     //In case you want axis aligned billboards uncomment the lines below
7.     //We use a modified inverse view matrix to axis align the billboards
8.     //float3x3 axisMatrix = (float3x3)UNITY_MATRIX_IT_MV;
9.     //axisMatrix[0].xyz = mul((float3x3)unity_WorldToObject,float3(-1, 0, 0));
10.     //axisMatrix[1].xyz = float3(0, 1, 0);
11.     //finalPosition = mul(finalPosition.xyz, (float3x3)axisMatrix);
12.  
13.     //We need the viewVector to align the billboards to the cameraposition
14.     float3 lookAtPoint = mul(unity_ObjectToWorld, float4(data.texcoord1.xyz, data.vertex.w)) ;
15.     float3 viewVector = normalize(_WorldSpaceCameraPos.xyz - lookAtPoint);
16.  
17.     //Then we create a LookAt matrix
18.     float3 up = float3(0, 1, 0);
19.     float3 zaxis = viewVector;
20.     float3 xaxis = normalize(cross(up, zaxis));
21.     float3 yaxis = cross(zaxis, xaxis);
22.     float3x3 lookatMatrix = {
23.       xaxis.x,            yaxis.x,            zaxis.x,
24.       xaxis.y,            yaxis.y,            zaxis.y,
25.       xaxis.z,            yaxis.z,            zaxis.z
26.     };
27.     //...and apply the rotation!
28.     finalPosition = mul(lookatMatrix, finalPosition);
29.  
30.     finalPosition = normalize(finalPosition) * offsetLen; // make sure the offset vector is still scaled

 

It's 2019 and it hasn't been solved yet.ahhahahaha

 

2020, terrain grass still faces the camera's forward vector.

 

Is this what all here are talking about?

Btw it's almost 2021

 

yeah, they fix it and broke it multiple times. Not sure who checks this. It seems they change every few months from working to wtf. Since Unity 2017 it's a hit or miss for billboarded trees.

 

Have you tried enable Billboards Face Camera Position in the Quality settings?

 

yeah and same issue, on/off. Right now they are not renderer at all in Android VR single plass for instance.

 

Billboards Face Camera Position works with the new XR system on Android in Unity 2020. At least with Multipass, and the terrain system built in billboarding of trees. But the performance is terrible. With more than two trees visible at the same time the frame rate drops to like 10 or so. There are a note about using LOD instead for Speedtrees. Haven't tested that yet. What method did you use for the billboarding?

Edit: Or maybe not. When I checked again, the billboards seems to follow the camera angle, and not the position. But they are showing. Not sure when it happened in the fps chase, though. Have tested different light, and baking settings, compressions, and streaming mipmaps. Perhaps that's messed it up.

 

Yeah, managed to get trees to render but the performance is complete crap. It has to be some bug, the Quest 2 cannot render more than 100 billboarded trees at a decent framerate when my 2015 Android phone renders 1000 at 40fps no problem.

 

Unity 2020.3.7f1, XR plugin with Oculus, graphics API: Vulkan
Project Settings -> Quality -> marked Billboard Face Camera Position doesn't help
Project Settings -> Quality -> LOD Bias set to 100 doesn't help....
If I move (rotate) my head up then all trees are almost flat on a terrain surface... TERRIBLE issue!

Autogenerated Billboards with the functionality of a Unity Terrain doesn't work with that assest:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/vegetation/trees/low-poly-tree-pack-57866
...but works with that asset (but it it super slow):
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/vegetation/speedtree/free-speedtrees-package-29170

4 years from the day when the thread was created and still it doesn't work - so I assume it will never happen. Anyone has any idea how to use unity terrain system with trees in VR?

 

Have you tried this one?
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/vegetation/trees/conifers-botd-142076

 

I found out how to render trees. The problem is with their default unity shader, it's crap. I'm rendering over 10k trees now on Oculus Quest 2 at 70fps.
I read on the 2021.2 alpha 17 release notes that they fixed it.

 

Not yet. Will try it later today.

2021.2 alpha 17 is... alpha unfortunately. Last LTS version is 2020.3.8f1
Could you please provide more details about you solution? Did you replace somehow default billboarding shader used by Unity Terrain system? Can you use your trees as the predefined objects to place them randomly on terrain with use of built in Unity tools (from the Terrain component on Inspector)?

 

yes

 

Well... I was hoping to find an easy fix, looks like I'll be using some different trees lol

 

HI, Just had an issue in terrain trees in VR with the billboards being a lot lighter than the 3d ones. After different tests i found that the material colour was set darker and the billboard does not take this in to account. so landed up seiing the material colour to white and adjusting the texture in a paint program to the darkness I wanted and refreshed the trees in terrain and its good now.

 

11/23/2022
grass and trees in unity vr... terrible idea...very Unreal