Softening texture alphas

For Trees, more specifically the tree creator.

I was wondering if there is some setting or special shader where i can soften the alpha? it seems to be a hard and jagged edge no matter what i do (ie softening in photoshop) Unity has alpha cut off but that is still no where near softening it.

It seems i can only use the tree creator material for the trees which just ruins the transperancy.
is there a way to "bake out the tree creator trees, so i can assign a different material?

Or a way to get other shaders to work with the tree creator. I get an error that states
" This material does not use a tree shader. A tree shader has to contain the word ‘leaves’ or ‘bark’ i nthe name and the line ’ Dependancy 'OptimizedShader" = “OPTIMIZED_SHADER_NAME” in the code.

Is there a way to add ^ what its asking to a regular shader that has nice trancparency??

Sure you use Transparent and not Transparent cutout?

With transparent it should be soft given the texture had soft alpha in in a corresponding alpha channel and you exported it right

Hi Cwisbg,

Check out this excellent Tree Creator tutorial by Larsbertram and/or ask him on the associated forum. He might know.
http://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=TreeCreator_Tutorial
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/103078-tree-creator-tutorial-%96-PUBLISHED

the tree creator shaders do not allow soft alphas as this would kill preformance in a forest, and it dosnt allow the use of different shaders with the tree creator system. Looks like im stuck with the cut out alpha?

HI cwisbg,

Are you “dilating” your leaf textures as in this tutorial? http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-alphamaps.html
This is for grass, but the “dilated” leaf textures are important for trees too, or at least for billboard trees which is what I use.

Here is a sample of my billboard trees. http://bitsong.com/Unity/Summer_Day/WebPlayer/WebPlayer.html

Zaffer

yeah i was getting about the same results. im looking for a more natural look with a soft edge. And yes dilating helps but it still has hard edges. Im from a 3d film background so maybe my expectations are to high for realtime… The camera post effect antialising works pretty good for softening them and is what i have settled on and am pretty happy with results