Speedtree 9

[B_John_Bailey]

So, Speedtree 9 was featured at Siggraph in August 2020, And there was an art feature in October.

It's now been over a year, are the any updates as to when speedtree 9 will be out? Have I missed it? I'm using Speedtree Games Indie, and the latest version of it seems to be 8.42. I'd love to try out some of the new features teased, but I can't find any news

If it's still not out, can I suggest that there need to be more output options for the exporter? We need more flexibility in texture packing, especially if including photogrammetric components. I'd love to choose texture by texture (or at least, material by material) what is being atlased.

[Greg Croft]

Hello,

Believe me, no one wants SpeedTree 9 out more than us. We were recently acquired by Unity Software, and that pushed out the release date a bit as we deal with associated hurdles. Hopefully it won't be too much longer.


> We need more flexibility in texture packing

If you mean which channels go where in the output textures, you can edit or write your own texture packers. If you are interested, we have expanded the docs for this for 9, which you can read now: https://docs9.speedtree.com/modeler/...texturepacking



> choose texture by texture (or at least, material by material) what is being atlased

You can do this in SpeedTree 8. On the material in the material asset bar, there is an atlas handling option you can use to force a material in or out of the atlas, no matter the general setting in the export dialog.


Hope this helps

[B_John_Bailey]

Thanks for the response Greg.

Yeah, I see that. The expanded docs are appreciated, though the process of writing custom texture packers (2 scripts??) seems like a messy workaround for something that could be pretty readily handled through a GUI, maybe through some node wiring so the flow of every channel is clear. Maybe that's just me and I should be more comfortable with some basic code, but it creates more friction to the experience than I think is ideal.

The atlasing tip is super helpful, didn't realise it was embedded into the material section there. After a lot of trial and error I got a workable result, though I do feel like having the controls for this process in 2 different parts of the interface (materials AND export dialogue) makes it more complicated than it really needs to be. It would seem to me to make far more sense to have all of these export controls located in the export dialogue.

Cheers

[ohat]

Hi,
I have been using Speedtree 9 for about 6 months now.
I realize that's it's still Beta, so is it less stable or something?
I do find it difficult obtaining Speedtree 9 specific help sometimes (slightly different UI).
Plus, I have not found any info on attaching imported meshes to Speedtree models (only the other way around). Is it possible?

[B_John_Bailey]

oHat,

from stuff like this it seems like you can add extra meshes using more mesh generators, and positioning them with Gizmos.

Section 3 of this feature list talks about attaching meshes to meshes, and the screenshots use some kind of "placement" node to add a spline spine, Or this feature video showing using tagetting, so it should be doable to add a mesh branch to a Speedtree procedural model

EDIT: Actually, surely this will do it right?

• bring the imported mesh in with a mesh generator
• right click node, add geo to selected, photogrammetry, place 3d anchors
• export as speedtree XML
• import
• right click, add geo to selected, photogrammetry, procedural branch off mesh

That tutorial covers the whole process though.

[ohat]

Many thanks for your input B_John_Bailey! I shall check out your links.
However, this first one you mentioned is something I have done.
It is the other way around - attaching photogrammetry, or home-made meshes to existing Speedtree models I am finding difficulty with.

Ah, I see further down there may be some help! Many thanks!

[ohat]

However, so far to me at least, the UI and modifiers in Speedtree9 are not all offered, at least in the same place.