The lowest supported version is Unity 2018.4. However, Unity will stop support for 2018.4 soon, so the minimum supported version will change to 2019.4 in the next few months.
Decals are not supported by the shaders at the moment. This is something that is planned for a future update. I am still looking into this, as there is absolutely no official documentation for HDRP from Unity and no information on how these systems work.
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Hey bud, any idea on my issues?
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TAA is not supported at the moment. Calculating accurate motion vectors would require computing the wind twice (which has a huge impact on performance), and the movement data for the interaction can’t be calculated between frames. I am still looking into possible workarounds for this.
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I looked into this for you. The interaction is currently not limited by the ground level, so it gets pushed below the ground (I did not think about underground areas when making this). I have fixed this for the next update so that the vegetation can never go below the ground. If you would like to give it a try before the update is released then please send me an email at support@visualdesigncafe.com and I can send you the updated version.
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Sorry to bug, but any ideas why, when using procedural instancing, my grass disappears when the camera gets close?
It only broke after updating to the newest version and I can’t figure out a fix.
With Instancing: 
Without:
Thanks for 2) much appreciated.
As for 1) I think first step is to provide a global toggle (maybe on the wind controller) to either enable/disable motion vector support as this renders grass and taa coexisting impossible - also taa isn’t going anywhere so yep.
Then I think for second step, we might provide an option to bake motion vector (if this is possible?)
Either way, we really need motion vector support. Even if it is for nearby vegetation or something. I end up disabling/minimizing wind because of this as tree sway gets really bad.
Hi, The asset is great.
I would like to know how to import/convert the AZURE nature asset, if it’s possible/compatible. What is the best way?
Thanks in advance for any advise.
Also, in case you are not aware, the new upcoming DLSS is also motion vector dependant, which means if Nature Renderer doesn’t support Motion Vectors, it will leave NR not compatible with both TAA and DLSS, which will make Nature Renderer not the best looking nor functioning vegetation renderer anymore. I can’t imagine the cost for generating Motion Vectors particularly higher than any other solution, so as long as it is implemented well it should be good enough.
For example, if we can choose “motion vector enabled” per shader (if that is possible) then, I could enable it for larger objects like bushes and trees that are very noticeable, and maybe some distance based approach so that upclose grass when it is moving due to wind or interaction, the smudging effect is minimized.
Another option I can think of, is to prebake motion vectors to a texture and play a fixed animation - if that is even possible.
Either way, I really hope you implement it. I am using NR because it is pretty much the only solution but if it fails to work with DLSS and TAA, I am forced to use something else…
Hi, thanks for this great asset!
I use NR in a URP project and I have a question regarding wind swaying. My trees have 2 materials, bark and leaves. To synchronize the movement of both, they have to use exactly the same wind settings, but this means that the trunk sways as much as the leaves, which looks unnatural.
My question is: Is there a setting to tell nature renderer at which height the swaying should start, so the trunk remains still?
I am currently looking into supporting motion vectors and I already have basic support working. Full support should be available in the next update. You can toggle motion vectors on/off per material.
The amount of wind movement is usually baked into the vertex data so that you can have precise control. Can you let me know how you set up the tree and what the material settings are?
You are awesome!
Sorry for getting back a bit late. The tree is made of two meshes: The trunk and the branches.
The trunk material: URP/Nature Shaders/Tree Bark
The branches material: URP/Nature Shaders/Tree Leaves
Both use the settings below and on both I choose the global scene wind, which uses the ‘calm’ preset. I make sure the wind settings are the same but both meshes are still out of sync.
how can I go about reducing the memory consumption of this perlin noise that is used? It is taking far to much memory in my project.
I am also not using any of the included shaders, just custom shaders which have been patched.
Thanks
Hello there, I think I found another bug.
HDRP 11, 2021.1f12
I get a strange grid of grass facing sideways underneath terrain. This wasn’t present a few NR builds ago so I am guessing this is a recent change, but is it possible that this is caused by a new bug in recent NR patch?
Here is an explanation of my below captured image.
1&2 img: shows a grid of sideways grass below terrain.
3&4 img: shows the top line of the grid of grass from above terrain. It looks darker as it is facing sideways at a hard angle.
Any idea about what is going on?
More info:
Just found out that it is 1.4.6 Nature Renderer that causes this issue. I went to my back up where it still had 1.4.5 and it was still fine. Then I installed 1.4.6 which made the bugs to come back, then I removed 1.4.6 and reinstalled 1.4.5 and it disappeared.
I think at this point it is very likely that there is a line or two wrong in 1.4.6.
Kindly look into it and fix it.
Thanks mate!
I am also having an issue with Nature Renderer generating a massive spike on the GC.
Currently making the asset totally unusable for me as that garbage is never unloaded & accounts for nearly half the current memory usage I have on iOS.
Any ideas for this? Its holding me up, wish I could at least try to check out the source while waiting for a reply.
I’m trying to use NR with some procedurally placed tree prefabs, but it seems that it’s not working. Atleast the performance seems to be the same with and without NR.
I’m using MTree addon to generate the trees which are then saved as prefabs. That creates LODs and nothing else special. I’m using the free Nature Shaders that came with NR. Those seem to be working correctly.
And I’m placing the trees on the terrain properly - using TreeInstances to place the tree prefabs.
Does NR not work with this or am I doing something wrong?
Also, toggling the ‘Draw’ checkbox in NR settings should show/hide whatever details (trees, grass) are on the terrain, right? It’s not doing that either, edit or play mode. That goes for the rest of the settings as well.
It can happen if the two meshes have a different pivot, or if the data for the tree has not been baked.
For the best results, it is recommended to bake the vertex data for the trees, this data is needed to determine where branches start and end:
- You can do this by creating trees with Unity’s Tree Creator, or by creating a Nature Asset (if you own Nature Shaders).
- If you can’t bake the data then you can get a close approximation by setting the Tree Height and Tree Radius to the same values for both meshes/materials. However, there is no way to accurately get the start/end of branches with this method so they may not always be connected or in sync. (This is a technical limitation, so it is not something that can be fixed)
Version 1.4.6 has an internal change and streams in the terrain data on-demand when moving around the terrain. This is done in squares. Based on the screenshot it looks like one row on the edge of a square did not get its terrain data loaded in, so the grass is spawned as if the height of the terrain is 0. Can you let me know the exact terrain size and detail resolution that you are using? It is most likely caused by a rounding error, but I’ll need to know the exact values to reproduce this.