Trouble with tree shading

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1

I want these trees i made look “realistic”, kind of like how it looks on blender

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However, when i import them into roblox studio, activate double sides and add surfaceappearance, the shading looks really weird:
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I have searched on the creator hub and i couldn’t find something that would help me, i also tried changing vertex normals and more stuff

Any help is appreciated!! (im new at making trees so u can send me feedback if you want too)

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2

Try figeting with ambience colors or darkening the texture for the leaves.

3

Didn’t work, but after messing a little bit i realized a few leave’s shading is like inverted, when its looking at the sun its dark and when it isnt its bright, and is really messing up the normal texture

4

Cluld be due to how the DoubeSided swtting it applying and functioning. Try seeing if making a leaf part have 2 sides in Blender fixes it.

5

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That looks a little bit better, it doesn’t look really good tho, but you did fix it the main issue. Thank you!
Do you have any feedback that might help me?

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6

Do you think your game could accept the performance cost of adding a bit more triangles to the tree to make it a bit more detailed? Such as bends jn the leaf meshes? Additionally, for better looks, you could take a peek at how some other good looking tree are made.

7

maybe make the tree move that will be better

8

I don’t think so, the map is gonna be huge, talking about maybe 10+ miles

9

Its a storm chasing game, its supposed to move with the wind so i separated the leaves into 2 objects

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I believe thats about what your stuck with then, speaking as you have them loving and such as well, itd be too much to make any more changes without large performance impacts.

11

Unsure of what you did, but starting from the 5:08 mark on this video until 10:42, attempt the same methods he’s doing. It should (hopefully) work or at least help you learn a couple new things.

12

Essentially, flat planes generally do not shade very well when lit, so developers edit their vertex normals on the leaf’s in order for shading to be more smooth.

Here is how to do it:

  1. In Blender, add a UV Sphere around your tree (scale it to cover the canopy).
  2. Right-click the sphere → Shade Smooth.
  3. Select your leaf mesh → add a Data Transfer modifier.
  4. Set the sphere as the source object.
  5. Enable Face Corner Data > Custom Normals in the modifier.
  6. Apply the modifier and export as FBX (make sure “Apply Modifiers” and normals are checked).

Boom! It should like the Tree on the right or close to it.
unnamed

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13

Sometimes using a full sphere for normal transfer works great, but other times it doesn’t depending on the type of foliage or tree. For example:

  • Dense trees or round canopies: A full sphere works well because the normals blend naturally around the shape.
  • Grass, bushes, or plants with wide spreads: A full sphere often makes the bottom look unnaturally bright or gives weird lighting on the sides.

What I’ve found works better in these cases is using a half-sphere (umbrella shape) for the normal transfer:

  • The normals on the umbrella point mostly outward and slightly down at the bottom.
  • This keeps the lower parts of the plant darker, mimicking how light actually hits foliage.
  • The top ends up looking brighter and smoother.

Here’s an example I did recently:

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I tried the full sphere first, but the shading looked off for this grass mesh. Switching to the umbrella gave me a much more natural look.

It really depends on the plant type, so don’t be afraid to experiment with the transfer shape. Sometimes even tweaking the sphere into a capsule or slightly stretching it can make a huge difference.

14

I already found a new way of making trees with Tree.it, but this still helped me. Some trees looked darker than normal, now it’s kind of fixed. Thank you, have a happy 4th of july!

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