Grass Asset WIP

[rough jasper]

We are working on a grass framework that focuses on performance first and foremost, but has all the features you would want in a generic foliage placement tool (ground projection, proper wind rotation...not SimpleWind!, sensible LODs, etc).

We designed this to be used as landscape layer which allows a user to easily paint this grass on top of any existing landscape. This introduces two separate landscape layers, one controls grass density and another lets you lerp from dry to lush.

Also, there is a method for blending the grass colors and normals into the landscape texture at a distance so you dont get a grass effect that disappears from the map completely once it is beyond cull distance. Many more features not explicitly mentioned here, and also in the works as well!

This video was taken on my RTX 3060 laptop GPU and was getting 75+ FPS with high grass density.

[rough jasper]

next steps will be to add capsule deformation (grass that bends out of the way of things walking/placed on it), and to experiment with some settings for LOD transitions and possibly do a final optimization of the most distant LOD to be a single triangle instead of separate sub-meshes