Last year I was looking for a wind shader to use on a low poly model, however I couldn’t find one that had the visual I was looking for. So I started to develop the Polygon Wind Shader.
It is supposed to simulate a more suttle organic wind movement on trees (not great for heavy wind effects).
Lately I haven’t had much time to work on it, so I decided to publish the source code here and make it available so that anyone can use it.
Result achieved in the last dev sprint.
This is an example of what it can look like, when used to populate a scene with the terrain editor.
How to use it:
Just apply the shader to a material and apply the material to your asset. The ideal tree asset is one with a single mesh.
The shader has various parameters for you to tweak:
Wind Wave Size;
Wind Direction;
Tree Sway Displacement;
Tree Sway Stutter;
Tree Sway Speed;
Foliage Wiggle Amount;
Foliage Wiggle Speed;
Branches Up/Down;
Red Vertex Influence;
Blue Vertex Influence.
It uses a series of inputs to calculate the final vertex position, one of them being the vertices colors of the mesh:
Red - Use on the branches to make possible the up/down movement;
Blue - Use it on the leaves to get that organic wiggle movement.
Hi!
So, I finally finished all my school work and now I can focus more on the development of the project.
Seeing that people are interested in it really inspiree me to keep working on it!
The thing is, these trees are not created with the Tree Editor, they are independent external assets. Then I apply the material thats using my shader to them, as with any other standard game asset.
Hope this answered your question.
Ah sorry, I meant how are you using these trees with the terrain tree system. (Using the terrain-tree painter). When I use the tool with my external assets, it gives a warning about how it requires the “Nature/Tree Soft Occlusion Leaves” shader.
If I don’t use this, the billboards get messed up.
That’s true, I still have this problem.
But I don’t see it being too much of a problem, given the fact that Low Poly games tend to present less problems performance wise.
Aw man I was hoping there was a way around this. If I use another shader, it get’s angry and the leaves turn invisible in the distance. I guess for now I’ll have to resort to not using terrain-trees at all, and just using normal meshes. Thanks!
I really appreciate the interest that you guys had with my project!
I’m back to working on it, so this week I’ll release the alpha version!
Regarding the price:
I thought a lot about it and I decided not to charge anything for it. Since this is my first project and I’m really a beginner on Shader Programming I don’t think my shader will be worth buying at this stage.
So I’ll release it FOR FREE and will keep working on it so I can improve my skills and abilities, and also so that I can provide you guys with a better and improved product.
