Adding grass, either in Unity or my 3D tool? Neither seems sufficient.

Unity Engine
1

I’m having a hard time choosing between either one. I’ve done my research but couldn’t find anything. FYI, I use Unity Indie.

Unity terrain grass (billboard version):

  • Very resource efficient
  • Beautiful wind effect
  • No ambient occlusion can be baked from the from Lightmapping section

Unity terrain grass, (prefab instances/detail mesh):

  • Very resource efficient
  • I prefer real 3D grass over billboards
  • Ambient occlusion from the Lightmapping section seems to overexpose the grass itself + no pretty ambient occlusion shadows on the ground
  • No pretty wind

Drawing grass in my 3D tool:

  • I can place them all over my model and bake proper ambient occlusion from within my 3D tool
  • I prefer real 3D grass over billboards
  • They are all exported as seperate objects. I think this will be more resource heavy, but I’m not sure
  • No pretty wind

The only real problem I’m having is NOT having ambient occlusion. Is there any way to get this in Unity from the built in terrain grass? If not, is painting them in my 3D tool a smart thing to do?

2

It will be far more resource heavy. (Unless, of course, you don’t have very much grass.)

–Eric

3

So is it possible to generate AO from either my billboard or 3D grass?

Or is it possible for Unity to understand when I’ve duplicated an item? Like the grass is drawn through Blender’s Particle System, through duplicates. Is there any way to make Unity understand that these are duplicates? (also 3ds Max is an option for me, I know both tools)

4

bump