GrowFX in games

[artmonky 1]

Hi guys,

 

Does anyone have any tips for using growfx for game production?  Am looking at a top polycount of 5000 pol

 

Example below of some of the results I'm getting so far

[Tobitobs 7]

Hello artmonky,

 

5k Poly is quite low I'd say... you have so much empty space in your twigs, in some engines it is better to have more poly but have less "wasted" space in the opacity map.

I think you should work with LODs, the low poly flat branches dont look good when they are close to the viewer or is your game more "stylized"? And which game engine are you using?

 

Cheers

 

[artmonky 1]

Hi Tobitobs,

 

Thanks for the feedback.  We are using an in-house engine and currently have no option to display alpha overdraw. The trees also transition straight to impostors, but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference as the code team have done a great job with this

The decision to go with this style of leaf cluster was so we could change the leaf clusters on any tree to give it a different look. Its very similar to older versions of speed tree handled it.  Should be pretty easy to optimize these if needed (I think they will need it). 

However I think I may have previously made the leaves far too small. I've rendered them again and feel they have a much better look. Also looks a lot better in substance painter which is closer to our in game look.  Just looks awful in max even after applying custom normals

 

[artmonky 1]

Had some time to reduce the wasted space on the leaf clusters. The whole tree lights a lot better than before and am not getting the same issues with 'flat branches'.

 

Coming it at 10k now and hope the reduction of alpha will balance out the poly increase