Can we talk about the Tree Creator? (And a little about the Asset Store)

News & General Discussion
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So I have been experiencing a lot of anguish because of the now outdated piece of the Unity editor that is the Tree Creator.

The biggest problem I have right now is that most of the halfway decent-looking nature packs on the Asset Store use the Tree Creator for some reason. Most of these packs are pretty old, so I guess it’s that way because the terrain system used to be very strict about what you could and could not add as a tree (thank god that was fixed). I know SpeedTree exists now but frankly those are way overpriced ($160 for like 27 trees and nothing else? No thank you).

Let me just list the issues I have had with the Tree Creator:

  • No LOD whatsoever. You get either the full res model or the billboard. That sure is great for performance.
  • Trees will randomly decide to do this if you modify them: Screenshot - 0a76241d388650f915c0a65f0a334866 - Gyazo
  • The materials you can use are extremely limited and outdated, and you can’t even modify the “optimized” ones the creator generates if there are problems.
  • Trees made with it just tend to look worse compared to trees someone actually took the time to model themselves.

The main point I want to drive home is is if you are going to make trees and release them on the Asset Store, please DO NOT USE THE TREE CREATOR.

I apologize for my saltiness, but i was basically put in charge of finding decent-looking assets for a game, which is apparently a very difficult task. Most of the ones that actually look promising end up having massive flaws and I’m on my last nerve. I’ve already vowed to never purchase any models from the Asset Store ever again. Maybe I am expecting too much but we’ve already dropped over $200 on assets only to be presented with packs that cost $50+ having glaring issues such as those with the Tree Creator.

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Ok so I feel a bit better after venting but now I am starting to regret posting this. I’ll leave it up anyway…

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you are wrong about the LOD system. In fact, the tree creator tool has one of the best LOD systems for trees because you can assign distances for each individual branch level on each individual tree. You can drastically cut down on tris just by eliminating 3rd tier branches 20 yards away and 2nd tier branches 50 yards away.

You also have to remember what tree creator is. it is a free tool, that can produce very good trees and makes it absurdly easy to make dozens of derivatives of each tree very quickly. It may take 15 minutes to make a nice tree, and then 5 minutes to make 10 more version of that tree that will make a forest look more realistic. If you buy ´full model´ trees, you are going to get 1 or 2 trees of each type, and their branches will all look the same and if you create any type of density, your players are going to see the repetition.

The same is true of speedtree, while the trees look good, you get 1 version of the tree, and then have to subscribe to their service to make derivatives of that tree.

The texture/material method they use takes a little time to get used to, but it is done for performance reasons and makes a big difference in forests.

Buying modelled trees is ok if your game is small and you just need a tree here and there, but if you are building forests, you are going to annoying yourself trying to spin trees so you can´t see the repetition.

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Sorry, but you still haven’t really convinced me.

I can’t find the LOD options you are talking about. There is the ‘LOD Multiplier’ value, but that appears to be a static thing. Also the fact that tree textures flip out whenever I try to modify a tree in any way like in the screenshot I posted is still a big issue.

I would love to be 100% wrong about the tree creator, believe me. I would love to be shown how great it is and have my foot shoved into my mouth, but I am just not seeing it. I mean I get that its more efficient to be able to procedurally generate trees rather than have to hand make them, but the tree creator just seems like its been completely abandoned.

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It’s largely that way because Unity doesn’t remove any packs themselves that may be outdated. This is partially due to the fact that some people are still using older releases of Unity and removing the packs from the store actually removes the ability to download those packs as well even if you’ve purchased them.

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The Asset Store in general could do with a good cleaning. It is having the same kind of issue as consumers have in the games market itself. So much stuff on it takes forever to find what you are looking for (at least for good solutions).

Still, considering I am using Unity 4.6 and only buying assets pre 5.0 for that reason I don’t want them to just blanket remove all of the older stuff either. Especially when something released 3 years ago may still be better than an asset released tomorrow.

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I don´t want to be rude, but you are wrong about these issues and it is because you are not using the tool correctly. When you create a branch structure. Let´s say the main trunk, then biggest branches, then smaller branches, then tiny branches…so you have 4 tiers of branches. This would create a very high poly tree. But you can set the tiny branches (4th tier) to only draw if the player is withing 10 meters of the tree. You can set the third tier to only draw if the player is withing 25 meter, and you can set the second teir to only draw if the player is within 40 meters etc. This very easily creates a great LOD system that is specific per tree. For instance, the more leaf coverage you have, the faster you can cull the branches underneath. In some of my trees, the 4th tier of branches are never drawn because they are just used to spread the leaves more evenly. The branch tiers each have their own LOD system which you can set while you have that branch tier selected.

Once you have that first tree done. DUPLICATE THE TREE five times in your scene. Then take the duplicates, and just change the seed value of the main trunk on each one, and maybe the seed value of the tier 2 branches. You now have 5 trees that of the same species, but which look completely different.

Now go back to your original tree and again duplicate it one time. From this new duplicate, again change the seed for the main trunk and the 2nd tier branches. But this time, mess around a bit and shorten the branch lengths of the first 3 tiers, and also cut down on the number of branches in each tier. Once you have this tree looking fairly good, duplicate it 4 times… change the seeds on the trunks and 2nd tier branches, and you now have 5 immature/smaller versions of your main tree.

This sounds complicated, but the truth is that once you have your first tree looking decent, it takes only a few minutes to make 5 versions of it and 5 immature/young versions of it.

The other big mistake I see people make is with the translucency value, which is set under the main inspector of the base of the tree. If you leave it at the default, your leaves will look too light from the back, the color value needs to be darkened a good bit for most types of trees. Most of the cheap trees that are free on the asset store or only a few dollars actually are not terrible once that translucency value is darkened.

It really is the same as any tool. You have to spend a little time learning it. But the two things you mentioned, are completely wrong. The LOD system is very powerful because you can tweek it per branch tier per tree, and the material is only getting messed up because you are trying to modify the prefab, and not duplicates of the trees in the scene view ( which is a little counter-intuitive to the way Unity normally works).

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Also, about the old packs on the asset store.

There is one creator in particular that has really screwed this up. During the Unity 3 and Unity 4 cycles he sold a ton of $70ish nature packs, but he still hasn´t updated them for Unity 5. The issue with his packs is NOT the trees or the tree creator tool, it is with his image effects and shaders They are fairly easy, but time-consuming to fix, which is why he has gotten so much hate on his facebook page. It should be taking him a few hours, maybe a day to fix each pack, but instead he has 1000s of customers who must each fix the packs individually because he isn´t doing it. it is really annoying to me because the Unity Store continues to highlight his packs even though the demo scenes and a good bit of the content does not work with Unity 5 very well. My own opinion, but when you have gotten that much help from Unity publicizing and featuring your packs ( and probably made a mint), you should have some respect and responsibility to keep them updated.

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How about explaining to him where you set the distance for each branch? Simply telling him to do so when he’s already stated he doesn’t know where is not being helpful in the slightest.

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Ah yeah, I glossed over that part. But let me say this. Before you start a thread complaining about a tool, you should at least read the official documentation of that tool. Before you tell people not to create content that uses a tool (and bold it) you should at least read the official documentation. I am usually a fairly helpful person, and I did spend a lot of time in my previous post explaining some of this stuff. But the original post he made was so demanding, that it is hard to view him as a ´student´ rather than someone who is just lazy and complaining about something they do not understand. He would be better off asking for help for things he doesn´t understand (or better yet reading the documentation) rather than demanding that content creators not use the tool.

He mentioned already that he saw where to adjust the culling of branch tiers. You select the branch, then adjust the appropriately named ´LOD multiplier´ For very tiny branches, you can often reduce that to 0, or at least to a very tiny number so those branches are not drawn unless the player is right on top of the tree. For things like your tier 1 branches ( trunk) you should leave it as a high number. An important fact is that even if you completely cull a branch group ( set the LOD muliplier to 0), any leaves or flower that you add to that branch group will still be drawn. This is a great way to give a nice ´spread´ to your tree without having a huge tri count, but at the same time you must be careful to keep those no-draw branch groups to be pretty short in length to avoid floating leaves.

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You know what Carve_Online, you are right. I am not qualified to talk about the Tree Creator. I am not qualified to complain about it. I am not qualified to tell people not to use it. I obviously let my blind frustration get the best of me when I made this thread.

I’m no artist, but I’m going to go take some time and really learn the Tree Creator. See if everything you are saying is true (don’t take that the wrong way).

And for the record, while I have dabbled in the tree creator slightly, I have not been actually making any trees myself (yet). I just bought a pack of trees that happened to use the tree creator, so I did have somewhat high expectations.

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On a semi-related note, the “sparkling trees” issue in Manufactura K4’s packs that use Tree Creator was fixed in 5.2:

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Your mileage will vary and it depends on the scope of your game. It is a fairly simple tool, but there is a learning curve which you have to decide if your project justifies learning a new tool. For my project, I wanted a large variety of tree types, especially fruit and flowering trees and so I took the time to learn it inside and out and have been able to recreate dozens of species of trees, and 10 or so variations of each species… for free. When you look at Speedtree, they are not without issues themselves, and most of them cost $30 just for one tree, and then you have to pay a subscriptoin to make variation of that tree… and on top of that, you still have a significant learning curve.

You also have to understand that trees are kinda a unique beast in a game in that you have to account for the fact that there can be hundreds of them on the screen at the same time, and they should be able to move in the wind. and on top of that the fact that light needs to be able to slightly penetrate through leaves and change colors. It is one of the reasons tree creator uses such a unique and sometimes complicated material creation system. Creating a realistic tree is extremely complicated compared to creating a realistic barrel.

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Lol, yeah the tree creator is kind of a nightmare. Anyone else have that issue where all your leaves are suddenly purple? Story of my life…

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Trees are something the people in the community have been complaining about since 2014 - And I don’t see why they shouldn’t. :smile:

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Just to correct myself. Tree Creator branch level LODs are broken somewhere between Unity 5.0 and 5.3

I am going to see if it is being fixed, if not, it should be pretty easy to just remove branch groups from the LOD0 tree and then set up a tradition LOD group.

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I’m not so sure I would call it “broken”. In my tests trees viewed in 5.0 have had more tris and more batches associated with them than in 5.3.

For example: I’ll have a tree with 936 tris (according to the tree editor) render with 5.6k tris according to the stats window. As I move away this number decreases to 2.8k, then to 1.9k, then the tree billboards.

In 5.3, however, the tri count according to the stats window remains between 2.8k and 1.9k (interestingly enough, its 2.8k when moving the camera and 1.9k when not moving). And does not decrease at all until the tree billboards.

My example is a somewhat small difference, but the results seem to scale to trees with high tri counts.

(I realize it’s a bit naive to get so hung up on tri counts and batches, but its the easiest thing to test with)

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Yeah, I am not really worried if it is fubar´d right now. I have actually been playing my game for a few months with 5.3 and never realized that something broke about it and the branches were no longer culling individually like they did when I originally built the trees.

Worrying about tri counts on pc games is somewhat of a relic, it really doesn´t matter that much anymore like it used to 5 years ago. Now you will get in trouble with draw calls and memory first. ( my opinion )

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Err… correction on this. When I did these tests I forgot to turn the directional light off, which apparently contributed those extra few thousand tris. In both 5.0 and 5.3 the stats window told me it was rendering exactly 936 tris no matter how far away I was. So I am basically convinced now that the LOD system within the tree creator you talk about doesn’t actually exist. Sorry.

And yeah you could use the LOD Groups instead, which has its own issues, like you would have to make your own billboards.

Anyways I think I’m through with this cause after all this time I feel like I’ve made no progress towards helping out my situation.

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Great post GarBenjamin!
I been saying this for over a year that they need to get the out dated crap off the store, it hides the good legit stuff. Which is rather annoying… How hard is it to check out who has updated and who is staying active??? I do it for 10k people on my site alone, so yes it can take time, but its not fair to the users or the developers that make current assets… I wish they would get there act in gear… I understand they are busy, but so are we… So time is money for us as well, they would make more money if they did this, so they could hire more help…So win, win!!

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Can you replicate this with a Unity-provided tree asset? I’ve barely used them, so I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen trees have multiple steps of detail in the past.