Tree Billboard shows in Editor but not Build [SOLVED]

Unity Editor
1

I am struggling to figure out why some custom trees are not being billboarded on the terrain during runtime in a build. I am using tree meshes from the Colorful World asset (in the asset store) and they show up as billboards perfectly fine in the editor and runtime within Unity. But if I build out the project they do not show up - only the meshes.

This seems to be a new occurrence in 5.6 as I haven’t had this happen before to my knowledge. Has anyone see this? Or know what’s up?

I tried making the terrain and tree models have static lighting (recommended from another forum post) but that didn’t work.

This is how they look in the editor and runtime in Unity.

This is how they look in a build (Notice no billboarded trees on the mountainside).

Thanks for any suggestions! :slight_smile:

2

Finally figured this out. For anyone who has the same problem, the issue is that the standard shaders do not work for billboarding on the terrain. You need to use either Nature/Tree Soft Occlusion Bark or Nature/Tree Soft Occlusion Leaves. There are others that work as well (Variants of Unlit, etc). But those work best.

1 Like
3

When building a game, Build Settings > Player Settings > Keep Loaded Shaders Alive, tick this. Try this, maybe it will work.