Grass on mobile device for 2023

[mattb-unity]

@creat327

that would be awesome

Just to follow up – I won’t be able to work on adding this feature. Our Terrain system is pretty old, so most effort that goes into it is maintenance instead of features.

[creat327]

any plans to create a better terrain system? Yes, it’s super old.

[nasos_333]

@creat327

any plans to create a better terrain system? Yes, it’s super old.

Hi, did you get any chance to try the latest mobile demos ? Thanks

Mainly the detailed mobile grass one
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oTYWRDkyXycO7ZqiRduZUgsxBSQFoqqU/view?usp=share_link

Also can check the more lighweight one with quad based grass
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WaZbVTbpW1oKjMcwXi0qbc2NHjEsRK2P/view?usp=sharing

[nasos_333]

@creat327

any plans to create a better terrain system? Yes, it’s super old.

Hi,

I have some amazing news on the foliage on mobile front, I managed to get the system with zero wait time to get in scene and a massive performance boost as well. This new mode saves the grass in scene, so get a larger scene file, but does not use the Grass Manager to batch the grass at game start, so get in scene time is instant.

Also the LOD manager works in a centralized way, giving an extra boost to performance.

The image above is from Samsung S22, with massive grass draw distance, very detailed close up grass mesh and batched billboards in the background.

The system offers a massive boost to mobile foliage performance and can get desktop level detail and shadows even at 60fps. I will be working on a demo where the player can move around the map and post it asap.

[nasos_333]

@creat327

Checking the Google Android console it seems almost all devices already support OpenglES 3.2, so I guess that should be the minimum specs. Although I see lots of OpenglES 3.1 still selling (amazon kindle 7 from 2019 for instance) by the time we add things into a Unity release we probably should just forget about 3.1.

I believe OpenglES 3.2 already supports computer shaders if that helps speed up things.

As for terrain size… large. I usually do 1kmx1km or 4kmx4km

On the other hand, keep in mind that I can run plenty of grass as a billboard on a Samsung Galaxy S6, which is 7 to 8 years old. From what I can tell, if you did the same with Tree Creator, it would work wonderfully. Basically have a bar on settings that after a certain distance, switches from 3d to a billboard, and then have Unity generate the billboards for you on the fly as it did with Tree Creator.

To give you an idea, my Samsung Galaxy S6 displays about 50k trees using the Tree Creator system at 40 fps. With no tricks or assets required. So it worked pretty well.

Hi,

I have now added the two final APK Android demos for the new instant get in game mode and very detailed grass meshes.

The first is with full features, like real time planting and run time permanent grass shaping and the second is with only the pre grown from editor grass.

This new mode will be available in the next InfiniGRASS 2.1 version.

InfiniGRASS v2.1 FULL FEATURES - Run time planting and Permanent grass interaction and shaping
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P31YvEdUqHwwd8vuVPUyOa3YYTTQ6MB2/view?usp=sharing

InfiniGRASS v2.1 PRE GROWN GRASS
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_42YDovZQFsTrJJMp--QH3FNwYkn7Hth/view?usp=share_link

Note that this is a stress test demo, with very detailed close up grass that is normally more suitable to desktop. Much more optimizations can be inserted over this, e.g. blend of detailed and quad based close up grasses.

[creat327]

@nasos_333 I understand you want to sell your asset. But please, this thread is about a particular demo project and how to optimize that demo project so that we can compare apples to apples. You keep posting about your asset updates every time you make an update on the store and already flooded the whole thread. This thread is not about your asset please. I will write to compare different tools when I have time, which is the idea of this thread. I will include yours too and try to be as impartial as possible with the pros and cons.

Also your 2 apk files do not load. They don’t run because they have missing files, I don’t know how you can run them. From the logcat.
4-21 14:23:40.562 18197 18287 E Unity : Material doesn’t have a texture property ‘_MainTex’
04-21 14:23:40.562 18197 18287 E Unity : (Filename: Line: 1462)
04-21 14:23:40.562 18197 18287 E Unity :
04-21 14:23:40.572 18197 18287 W Unity : The tree GameObject couldn’t be instanced because the prefab contains no valid mesh renderer.
04-21 14:23:40.572 18197 18287 W Unity : (Filename: Line: 172)
04-21 14:23:40.572 18197 18287 W Unity :
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity : TerrainCollider: MeshCollider is not supported on terrain at the moment.
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity : (Filename: Line: 197)
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity :
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity : TerrainCollider: MeshCollider is not supported on terrain at the moment.
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity : (Filename: Line: 197)

i also just tested your latest software update and i got no different results from the previous versions. There are like 20 demo scenes, hard to tell which one you want people to look at. I tried latest Demo 2.1 stuff, but i only see high end mobile demos there. Which is the demo scene we should be looking for a regular mobile device?

But again, this thread is not about your asset. It seems it turned into your personal beta testing thread. Please let’s move your asset-related things to your asset thread, where you also post the same content. All your asset related conversations I will continue at your thread here:
[-50% Weekend Sale✅]Infinigrass-GPU Optimized Interactive Grass-Trees-Meshes,work on mobile,HDRP-URP - Unity Forum

[nasos_333]

@creat327

@nasos_333 I understand you want to sell your asset. But please, this thread is about a particular demo project and how to optimize that demo project so that we can compare apples to apples. You keep posting about your asset updates every time you make an update on the store and already flooded the whole thread. This thread is not about your asset please. I will write to compare different tools when I have time, which is the idea of this thread. I will include yours too and try to be as impartial as possible with the pros and cons.

Also your 2 apk files do not load. They don’t run because they have missing files, I don’t know how you can run them. From the logcat.
4-21 14:23:40.562 18197 18287 E Unity : Material doesn’t have a texture property ‘_MainTex’
04-21 14:23:40.562 18197 18287 E Unity : (Filename: Line: 1462)
04-21 14:23:40.562 18197 18287 E Unity :
04-21 14:23:40.572 18197 18287 W Unity : The tree GameObject couldn’t be instanced because the prefab contains no valid mesh renderer.
04-21 14:23:40.572 18197 18287 W Unity : (Filename: Line: 172)
04-21 14:23:40.572 18197 18287 W Unity :
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity : TerrainCollider: MeshCollider is not supported on terrain at the moment.
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity : (Filename: Line: 197)
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity :
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity : TerrainCollider: MeshCollider is not supported on terrain at the moment.
04-21 14:23:41.004 18197 18287 W Unity : (Filename: Line: 197)

i also just tested your latest software update and i got no different results from the previous versions. There are like 20 demo scenes, hard to tell which one you want people to look at. I tried latest Demo 2.1 stuff, but i only see high end mobile demos there. Which is the demo scene we should be looking for a regular mobile device?

But again, this thread is not about your asset. It seems it turned into your personal beta testing thread. Please let’s move your asset-related things to your asset thread, where you also post the same content. All your asset related conversations I will continue at your thread here:
[-50% Weekend Sale✅]Infinigrass-GPU Optimized Interactive Grass-Trees-Meshes,work on mobile,HDRP-URP - Unity Forum

Hi, sure, will reply on the above in my thread

[fabrism77]

@creat327

No, Unity vegetation system hasn’t changed since Unity 2.0 practically. And GPU Instancer does the same as Vegetation Studio. It just draws indirect instances. It works well for tons of 3d meshes, but it has little to no benefit for grass on mobile. If you are using SpeedTree, rocks and such, Indirect Instancing works fine so it will be helpful (Vegetation Studio or GPU Instancer). On the other hand, do not use Vegetation Studio, the author has been gone for months and the emails bounce. It’s failing and not updated.

For grass on mobile? Nope, none of the packages are useful, unless you were so silly to try to render dense grass as 3d meshes on a mobile phone.

I have been so silly to render with rendermeshinstanced and works fast AF on 6 yo phone

[creat327]

you render a full terrain of grass with rendermeshinstanced on a 6 yo phone? and fast AF? can you attach a picture? hard to believe

[ProgramerKismin]

I think it depends on how it is implemented. After I tried comparing the standard Unity grass rendering, it was still very good. tested with old device redmi note 9 4gb ram
note: you have to use a mobile shader to render it

• with TerrainGrass really terible fps

• with standart grass mobile
  
  

• final comparation

[creat327]

i wouldn’t call that fast AF and the amount of grass seems pretty small and quality like a 90s game. How much grass do you have in there per patch?

[ProgramerKismin]

My cellphone is very old, so I optimized it a little (In the previous picture, the grass image is blurry). after several tries. apparently with a custom shader. unity tree is the real winner (I hope unity adds a terrain rotation feature in unity tree), one drawback is that it doesn’t have rotation. if you want to change unitytree with rotation. You can change it with DrawMeshInstance with performance that is not much different. You can also use DrawMeshInstancedIndirect but most of the time it doesn’t work on cellphones, (on PC you can get 2x faster fps with DrawMeshInstancedIndirect)

• topdown mode
  

  
  

• wide mode
  

  
  

• why DrawMeshInstancedIndirect not work on mobile
  this test on pc
  

  

[ProgramerKismin]

ignore all my suggestions. and just use this. all your problems are solved. GitHub - AssemblyJohn/Critias-FoliageSystem