Creating Several Terrain Prefabs

Hi guys, I love the way Unity handle the trees, so I had an idea, and want to know what you guys think.

I´m working on a city builder game, and we have lots of buildings, I want to decorate the yards on then with trees,
problem is that if I use the tree models Unity don´t turn then to billboards on distance, because they are not being handle by the terrain system.

So what if I create a new terrain, of the size of each model, to use as a “base”. I put the model on it, plant trees and details, and then save both together on a prefab?
That way all trees would be handle by the terrain engine…

My fear is that with 300+ buildings, this could someway eat up performance?
The game is browser based, so the file size should remain as small as possible…

Thanks!!!

hi!, do yours trees will be billboard even if they are near to the camera?..

to gain performance you can do what you think, but try to decrease the terrain configuration scrolls:
pixel error to 90%
base map dist to 30%
detail distance to 30%
tree distance to 30%
billboard start to 0% (all yours trees will be billboard for ever)

depending your camera orientation, you can test the values of the terrain configuracion, … don´t forget to lower the resolution size too.

Hi Mig,

Thanks for the tip!
The trees shoud became 3d near the camera… That is why this bilboard system is good…
Gonna try to do and see what happen :slight_smile: