Dynamic Tree & Plant Generator for Unreal Engine 4

[@S.Krezel]

DISCORD: discord.gg/qWHeGuNbXh

[@SirMustachio100]

Excuse me. Are you trying to get me to skip school tomorrow!? BECAUSE IT FUCKING WORKED!

[@orlandoorlandelli]

Wow!! This is amazing. Excited to play around with this when it's out :D

[@S.Krezel]

Thanks! I've sent the 4.13 update to Epic yesterday, so I hope that they'll make it available after the weekend.

[@CaptainLettuce]

This is actually so amazingly intuitive !! Great work

[@lunybunny9053]

Even being a classic marketplace item it is wonderful, essential and unique.

[@NightroPulse]

It will be a joy messing around with this! : )

[@Skinkemann]

Fantastic tech, superb work! :D Hope to see this rad & dynamic flora used creatively in games!

[@QUANT_PAPA]

i love diss smooth graphics and animation man

[@benk4279]

This is sooo cool! Great job!

[@S.Krezel]

Thank you! :)

[@PawelHoraczy]

These falling leafes are making amazing atmosphere :)

[@medvega6447]

10/10, no words

[@NocturnalJin]

Very impressive. I hope I need it someday. I think the next step is getting them to actually grow. From a sapling up, maybe using light and branch stress to determine the direction/length/branching/etc. Maybe you could even figure out how much shade a tree is making so it affects how the smaller trees around it grow. That's a tall order but given what I just saw, I would imagine it isn't outside the realm of possibility for you.

[@S.Krezel]

Thank you! In previous versions I made a simple tree growth mechanic, but UE engine bugs stopped me from developing it further. I'll try some different approach soon. The features that you've mentioned are really interesting and would be possible to implement, but it would really benefit only some advanced foliage simulations - for now this tool is designed for general game usage... And in a regular game, most players probably wouldn't even notice an advanced effects like this :)

[@anamtakhan1744]

wow this looks amazing

[@hyderali3791]

The heaven. This Gonna Be Amazing in my ps4 project. I'll definitely buy.

[@firemelstudios5204]

You're hired. I'm mentioning you in my stream in 2019 once the map is released. Expect the mentioning to pop up in mid conversation in January, because between now and then I'm starting 3D heightmapped album covers and stage designs before I buy a music program to professionally put together an album. Shoutout to you for making detailing my stage visions a hell of a lot easier than manually designing everything. 👍

[@etheriondesigns]

Hi, Would you be able to upload a packaged demo of it? I would love to purchase but need to check the framerate on my PC to see if it goes well with VR.

[@Telimaktar]

Amazing work!

[@ArcStriker]

Your generator looks fantastic, looks like you put tons of thought and effort into this! Going to grab when I have the extra cash. Does the generator support custom textures for leaves, trunks and branches?

[@S.Krezel]

Yes, it's possible to assign any custom tileable bark texture and custom leaves (usually a mesh plane with alpha texture) to use with the generator. Thank you!

[@seatony9917]

Is it possible to change all parameters through blueprint or C++ code?

[@Sto08]

Great work! Can this Pack make plants grow dynamically?

[@buster5661]

I wish your demo showed more straight trees with straight branches

[@izvarzone]

If you do wind like that, does it affect player or projectile collision?

[@jonasmlgaard8884]

Looking really nice man! Thumbs up! Is the physics interactable based on actual physics or shader? I mean does physics work even if merged to a static mesh?

[@S.Krezel]

Hey, thanks! All the animations are based on GPU (all transform logic happens in material, only a few basic parameters are driven via blueprints). For every element (trunk, branches, sub branches) it uses special 'Form' BP that contains both merged static mesh (instead of spline meshes, for optimization) & original spline point info - this way it can still perform some dynamic actions. For tree chopping it was tricky to even detect clicking on GPU animated trunk, but after a lot of workaround steps (tree collision recreation in CPU for 1 frame - based on actual GPU offset, collision generation using capsules, attaching, etc.) it finally offsets chopped tree part to match current GPU animation, switches materials, spawns it in special 'pickable' blueprint and simulates physics. PS. I'll also make some branches break after falling down (on ground contact), probably in some future update :)

[@thedoublep434]

Amazing work, with this and your spline maker. Would these tools have a big impact on performance over static meshes? How would the tree generator perform in a huge open world map?

[@S.Krezel]

Thank you! On GTX 760, with Epic settings, full dynamic lighting and HD res I get from ~50 to ~80 FPS standing on the edge of 60k UU forest with ~600 trees and looking at horizon. The trees are optimized (billboards, drawcall reduction by not using spline meshes directly, disabling shadows for some branches, and other techniques) quite well for dynamic objects, but they still have their cost. In UE 4.14 I'll try to implement full tree merging (to static mesh) since the bug that stopped me from doing this is finally marked as fixed for 4.14. This should allow me to add even better optimization system. I wouldn't recommend using this for a huge, dense forest in non-top-down game without any kind of sub-level/level streaming system though. Also, for a huge forests it's probably better to use regular instanced static meshes (foliage tool) and use dynamic trees only in the areas where player can visit.

[@sank8884]

Krezel, is it possible to export the trees created using your tool and use that with the foliage tool? Really interested in creating individual tree assets using your tool

[@S.Krezel]

Yes, you can export any generated tree (and merge it into static mesh) by selecting a tree and clicking File -> Export Selected... This will save your tree into .fbx file. The Merge Actors tool is still too bugged to do this 100% inside engine, but the method with 'Export Selected' works ok.

[@MikiButler]

I take that this is using the spline component in unreal, which can make everything pretty expensive since every point of the spline is a single drawcall. So this trees can be pretty heavy in terms of performance, Is there a way you can convert everything into single meshes after getting the desired shape? If that's the case thats f** great. Awesome tool keep it up ! :)

[@realmcafee]

Looks promising , how ist the behavior to light? The first seconds are not long enough to look at :/

[@S.Krezel]

Just like every other mesh, it depends on your lighting setup - it also uses the two sided foliage shader for leaves, so the subsurface effect is visible when looking towards light sources through leaves.

[@oolongz7]

great job i'm so impressed:) one question though... is it possible to replace the textures with selfmade ones after creating a tree or would i run into complications? again, well done!

[@S.Krezel]

Yes, you can use custom textures for bark & leaf plane materials. For example, just copy one of the included bark material instances and change texture parameters (Color/Roughness/Normal textures) in it to your own textures. Then you can assign desired bark material in tree parameters. Thank you!

[@oolongz7]

Awesome :)

[@_jaska]

What's performance like? These are awesome but I'm curious if a forest of them would be taxing on the computer?

[@WindBendsSteel]

Is is all done with splines? does it affect performance too much for old machines? Could it be used on mobile games?

[@S.Krezel]

Splines are used for trunk/branch shape creation, but then they are merged into static meshes, so there are no spline meshes in final asset. It has many optimization systems implemented and it should be fine for high end mobile devices, that all depends on the amount of placed trees. But when it comes to larger forests, I recommend my other tool, Interactive Tree Creator, since it produces regular static meshes that can be instanced e.g. with the UE foliage tools.

[@FEV369]

I really like what I see. I know very little about making assets/coding or even Unreal4... So I'm looking for something I can make very crazy looking trees and plants with, mainly trees, that is easy to make and put in UR4. My question is about how many kinds of leaves and bark you have available, are there more options, can I get more options somewhere and simply switch out 1 of your leaves with something I found? Where would I fond leaves and bark to replace for more verity if possible? Sorry I don't know any of the lingo when discussing making games. I'd like to make many "normal tree's" but I'd also like to be able to make some really cool fantasy trees.

[@S.Krezel]

Yes, you can use your own bark textures and leaf meshes. There is 21 bark material & 23 leaf plane materials included by default. You can find more bark/leaf textures on sites with free textures like textures.com. Yes, this tool is quite versatile, it's posible to get both fantasy/alien trees & plants.

[@FEV369]

Thx for the quick replay, I'll buy something like this soon as I have a few other RL projects going first. I see you have a few different things like this in the marketplace, what is the best option or mix of options to make assets like this in your opinion? The bridge program you had where you can make vines/ropes and stuff is that the same where you can add different materials to it and still warp it around objects?

[@S.Krezel]

Yes, basically all my tools allow to use custom materials & mesh parts, Smart Spline Generator included. For trees, there is a comparison between my two tree creators here, so it depends on what you need: goo.gl/PVngZU

[@exhale85]

Thanks for the video! Any tutorials for implementing growth animations? Thanks!

[@Irkie500]

Would there be any issues using this to generate the meshes for the trees, using my own textures(or substances) for leaves and bark, and then repackaging them in an environment pack on the marketplace(obviously with other things besides the trees)?The reason I ask is I am looking to develop small level kits that can be used to design a themed environment, so speeding up the tree generation process with your plugin would be an immense help.I would be more than happy to give credit where credit is due, I just want to ensure that this is a viable workflow as I am not a very good modeler.Thank you! and amazing work!

[@PsychosisRecords]

Irkie500 what you could do is bake it into a mesh after, and then also include the parts you used to make thr tree and advertise thst if they have the asset your custom pieces are included.

[@sneurlax]

but do the trees and the grass sway together? I mean does this pack work in tandem with your other? --coordinated?

[@S.Krezel]

Yes, when you set wind direction the same as in the other system, but not automatically, since there is no way to connect these two separate systems together out of the box.

[@MatthewPepek]

nice work

[@yongkunguo9642]

WTF？！！ It’s sooooo cool！！！

[@goktugulvan3903]

How much polygons of assets?

[@shawnslater9558]

Does your tool allow easy modification of variables of each tree asset via script for dynamic changes?

[@S.Krezel]

Trees are generated in the Construction Script. After changing a variable it would need to destroy itself and run it again (just like it behaves in the editor). One of the ways to accomplish that would be to expose certain variables on spawn, and then destroy desired tree and spawn it again with altered variables plugged into the Spawn Actor from Class node.

[@TheShadowstalons]

This looks fantastic! Any word on if this is Multiplayer-Optimized?

[@S.Krezel]

Thank you! By default it's designed for single player - I don't know how hard it would be to add multiplayer replication on top of it, since I don't have enough multiplayer experience... Yet :)

[@TheShadowstalons]

I figured as much. We were looking for a solution to doing something like this for our survival game we are working on, and was totally hoping you might have found a solution with this, because harvesting a tree node and having it react like this would be incredible.

[@Freak_Gamer]

*Someone give this man an oscar!* - me

[@SSchithFoo]

Oscar's are for no talent yapper mouths with lots of money. THis is real talent.

[@liquidos232]

Hi, i have several problems that i couldn't find how to fix, it's about your plugin. Not exactly a real problem, just want to tweaks it so it works quietly in my project. Do you have any discord/email so we can discuss it?

[@S.Krezel]

Sure, the support email is listed on my Marketplace profile, please contact me there.

[@divoproduction7352]

This is future

[@LxonWWW]

Amazing !, this is next gen! I'm thinking of buying it! :)

[@PewDicate]

I accidentally read "tree" as "free" and it gave me hope to quickly download it. Nevertheless you did a great job.

[@S.Krezel]

The update is live on the Marketplace! www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/dynamic-tree-plant-generator

[@S.Krezel]

Not by default, unfortunately I don't have networking experience.

[@kimleeyamamoto7097]

Amazing work! Is there any chance you would develop it for unity too?

[@S.Krezel]

Thanks! I'm working in UE4 and I last used Unity a few years ago, so I'm afraid that I don't have enough knowledge & time to develop on both the engines, unfortunately.

[@Xiox321]

This sort of stuff must be really intensive to use, which is why we never see anything like this is big games, right?

[@petertremblay3725]

Exactly!

[@robertcox6765]

If trees are shot or etc in game will they break?

[@S.Krezel]

Yes, you can see an example tree breaking implementation (it breaks in points where player clicks) in one of the demo levels included in the project.

[@naosoucaixista]

I tried to buy, but no compatible with version 4.18.2 =/

[@S.Krezel]

I've just tested it and it works correctly in a new 4.18.2 project. If you still have some issues with it, please contact me on the support email and I'll help you. Thanks!

[@rudraprataplaha]

Please upload a playable demo for mobile and pc

[@yatah]

Is this coded in c++ or using blueprints?

[@S.Krezel]

It's made purely in Blueprints.

[@RexArtTv]

S. Krezel how do you learn specific blueprints like this?

[@snowwarden3711]

made a speed tree?

[@techuser1619]

This is amazing!! I was just wandering if you could help me. I've been looking everywhere online for any tutorials on plant growth for unreal engine 4. Like an animation for plants growing, coming out of the ground, sand, rocks, etc.! If you know of any helpful tutorials could you please point me towards them? THANK YOU!

[@Fyb3r]

Can this make Palm trees

[@S.Krezel]

Yes, but for now you need to use your own palm leaf texture. I'm working on some new presets for the next update though - and it will include Palm tree presets out of the box! :)

[@LUGERIUS-GAMEs]

i am will but this it is amazing

[@SSchithFoo]

Are you God?

[@vitruxtho]

By any chance, will this be free anytime soon? I like this

[@PsychosisRecords]

VitruxTho probably not ever. Shit like this is hard to make and tskes a long time. Spend the bit of money and support the dev, it will make your game that much better and make you mkre money then you spend.

[@AurelienGatineau]

cpu or gpu is dead ?

[@zeepster]

Witchcraft!

[@alexandrepv]

Rubber wood :)

[@nate1980]

I have send a mail to you :-)

[@nate1980]

Hi, I have send you a mail ;-)