Trees, what are some techniques that you use?

So I ran into a problem when exporting. When I export the colors don’t show up once the mesh is imported to studio. How do I fix this?

The colours in blender don’t export with the mesh unfortunately. I exported the trunk and leaves separately and just changed the brick colour.

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Oh alright thank you!

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As this topic was just posted, I would hate to clog up the feed with another post about trees, so I’m hoping that this is allowed:

I have a somewhat realistic-oriented building style. I’ve seen some really cool realistic and efficient trees, but I don’t have a clue on how to make them. I mean, I have an idea, but I don’t know how to execute it. I’d send some images, but I’m on mobile right now. When I’m on a computer, I’ll add some images.

For now, to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, there is a guy who’s making a game currently (can’t remember his name), and it’s about trains. It has extremely good looking trees, and they are each only about 500-ish triangles. That’s what I’m aiming to “replicate,” if you will.

If you know what I’m talking about, and know how to do it, then I’d be very thankful. Videos are appreciated. Thanks!

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@RedDuck765 It’s not a very common practice but it is possible to export meshes with vertex colors. It allows you to upload meshes with not just multiple solid colors, but color gradients between vertices as well.

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Whenever I make trees, for ‘low poly’ settings, I usually use a hexagonal prism mesh and finish with brick leaves. It takes a little bit of time to build out all of the branches, and its not the most optimized you can get of course, but the end result always fills my maps with very rich and cozy vibes. [ Also very first post! ]

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This is definitely an underrated question. I’ve had issues with trees myself, however, I started practicing and experimenting with them a lot until I picked up a few things to consistently make a decent tree.

I make my trees out of meshes, but the following tips still apply to any execution of constructing a tree.

Kinda stupid but; think like a tree.
I always start at the bottom and work my way up/out: I focus on making natural looking shapes first, and then I move on to --what i believe to be-- the most important part.

Think in 3D.
Trees are a 3D object, the entire function of a tree is based on the leaves branching out to capture sunlight. The important correlation here is that games are 3D as well so as a developer, I try to make it feel like a tree from any angle a player may see it at.

Once I get some branches done that’s when I think about placement. I’ll just take a branch and start adjusting it to fill up the most space. Usually I’ll look at it from the top, front, and side to ensure there’s no bland sides of the tree.

tl;dr: bottom bigger, think tree, make appealing in every direction

Quick example:

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Did not know that. Thanks for the insight! :smile:

Very helpful! Thank you very much!

Amazing! Thank you so much.

Here’s one of my ideas! :smiley:

And here’s a really good essay about trees, and how to build them professionally.

(You must open that mini essay.)

Good luck! :slight_smile:

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image
I always make the branches and the trunk in this pattern with a large block on the bottom and gradually make it more thin
image Then I rotate them around slightly and attach them together

Then I add a few green blocks on the top to make it look like leaves
image

Very simple , I have been doing them like this ever since I started and they still look cool ( In my opinion )

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There are ways to make really amazing trees on blender less than 1k Triangles or Polygons, its just way too time expensive, the usual way to make trees the realistic way is to make the leafs with a built in plugin in blender, import it to Studio and then apply a leaf texture on it.

You will have mixed results due to the leaf textures on studio usually clip over each other like decals this can be easily solved by changing the weight on the leaf meshes but its really time expensive.

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Thats a very nice Tree Mesh

My bet would kind be to stay away from Meshes, but I’ve heard that Blender Tree’s are amazingly smooth. I would try Blender.

If you’d like to build the tree’s, here are some designs:

d384de4584c908281d902ef61687f0f4

tree design’s don’t belong to me

Try not to use bricks for the leaves. Good luck!

Or use unions as an alternative…
Desktop_170319_1211

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We stress tested a ton of trees for our game. Meshes for trees are definitely the way to go, for large more complex trees. It will take a little longer to load in the beginning, but your overall performance is tons better.

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Could you send me a video tutorial on that, or some instructions because those leafs look incredible!

Alike to many other people here, I also use meshes - which I’ve created in Blender.

It’s possible to create trees with a cartoony-ROBLOX feel in Blender, but also make them look pretty smooth and nice.

Performance-wise, using mesh trees cuts down lag by quite a bit, as they would only use a few parts each, compared to 30 (for a simple tree), and 150+ for a detailed tree! Using Blender, you can create both simple and detailed trees in less time, as well as cut down on loads of lag. :smiley:

On YouTube, there are many tutorials for creating trees in Blender. They’re all very simple, so you should check them out, depending on what style of tree you’d like.

Just wanted to add this: if you plan on doing your tree’s in studio, then make sure CollisionsEnabled is not checked for the leaves. This means the GPU no longer has to calculate the physics of the part (yes, this is a GPU operation; it’s not handled by the CPU), and therefore you receive way less lag. Another thing is to cut down on the render fidelity of the object by unioning and then changing the render property to automatic. The default setting is Precise. Switching it to automatic lowers the time the GPU spends drawing the part, leading to more time spent drawing frames and therefore less lag.

Note I’m relatively new and this could all be wrong, but from personal experience I’d say this is correct. If anyone wants to verify what I said, it’d be greatly appreciated!

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