Add anchor points to externally created mesh?

[mikST]

Is it possible? Here is the mesh I created in blender. I need to now somehow add anchor points to this mesh to add variation. Thanks



edit:Found what I need I think, "mesh on mesh" placement, however I have version 8.4 but the mesh node isn't working for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSpx19sR2Vo

[mikST]

Apparently this feature is disabled on UE4 speedtree? Is there a way to unlock this feature? If not, I'd appreciate a method of doing this with UE4 speedtree as this is a great feature

[SarahScruggs]

Hello,
You can use blender (or other software) to save the anchor with your mesh. Just make sure your anchor is labeled "anchor" or "instance" before export from blender and SpeedTree can recognize it.

If you want to do all of these steps inside of Speedtree, for a static mesh like this- you would need some of the features not offered in the subscription software.
With a different license the Games software that can export an .fbx with the anchor posistions stored in it. To do this you'd:

1.Create a SpeedTree file with your static mesh laded in.
2.Use a target to point to where you'd like the anchors to be (and the direction)
3. Load in any mesh or obj and label it either "anchor" or "instance"- attatch this generator to the target generator.
4. Export as an .fxb with "leaf references" selected.
(We include a training file that illustrates this use case in your installer folder )

Alternative solutions that do not require software outside of the subscription:
Instead of creating your mesh in blender, it will be very fast if you import the textures and use SpeedTree's mesh cutout editor to create the mesh. In that window you can select the anchor positions. This is only a solution if your leaf cluster is a flat object and you are placing it in the scene as a flat mesh.

If it IS a 3d mesh you could use the mesh on a frond with a spine underneath. Simply attach another spine and frond generator with the anchored piece. This will have the meshes overlapping/ cutting into each other because they are getting the location from the spine. My recommendation to control this is to use very similar sizes in the absolute length with fewer poly's in the spine itself. Use a controlled generation style to set up the locations of the branching off mesh.

I hope this helps!