Official word on SpeedTree for UE4 subscribers

[SpeedTree]

Hello,

We know there have been a lot of questions about SpeedTree coming to UE4 subscribers. We're posting updates on http://blog.speedtree.com, including our first about UE4 since GDC.

The short answer is yes, we will have an offering available to UE4 subscribers soon. It will be fully-featured, minus the AAA-licensing cost. We will bring you details as soon as we know them. If you like, you can join our mailing list by emailing unreal@speedtree.com.

Cheers,

Chris King
IDV, Inc.

[ezpuck]

Yeah : This is awsome!

[iniside]

Thanks for info. Can't wait to see what are you guys up to!

[Jacky]

This is great news! Thanks for the update.

[SonKim]

I'd be interested only if the EULA allow me to sell trees I have created on the UE4 market place

[SE_JonF]

This is great news for sure, can't wait. =)

[ioFlow Studios]

Hi Chris,

Sounds great, will it be version 7 and if so what is the performance like compared to the version that was in UDK?

I really like SpeedTree (waited for ages for oblivion to come out because of the foliage in it) but found that the implementation in UDK had a number of issues:

- No good for forests, more than a handful of trees over your landscape and the frame rate would start dropping like a stone (yeah I was using LOD and billboards)
- No good for forests, because you couldn't place speedtrees with the foliage tool (you literally had to hand plant them one at a time)
- There was a weird glitch with the horizontal billboard, it would show as black from below (very noticeable if you were looking up at speedtrees from lower down on a slope).

*edit*

Suggestion: you know what would be cool? Being able to auto populate a level with foliage and or speedtrees based on a noise mask in the landscape material...

[Meltdown]

Great news

[kassane]

Perfect, this is great news! :P

[Majority]

meanwhile how in the world can we make trees with bending foliage? is there any tutorial at all?

[ambershee]

Are you actually going to maintain the integration this time, or leave it to rot like in UDK?

[DanDaDaDanDan]

Are you actually going to maintain the integration this time, or leave it to rot like in UDK?

Ambershee, do you have a list of things you would like to see in the integration? Or things that should be done differently?

FWIW, we at Epic directly maintained the SpeedTree integration in UE3. While we didn't add new features over time I wasn't aware it was rotting badly. Could you point out some areas of pain so we and SpeedTree can both ensure that this doesn't happen again?

[ambershee]

I don't use it personally, but there were a few common and recent reports of issues on the old forums aside from performance issues:

The issue in the most recent build appears to be cards not appearing on imported speed trees:
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/...es-not-showing
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/...Tree-No-Leaves

There are also issues with speedtree and lightmass sporadically not playing well together:
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/...ld-all-objects
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/...appear-to-work

There's some strange issue with atlas or texture indices:
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/...ith-speedtrees

[DanDaDaDanDan]

Thanks! Let me get someone to look at those issues to see whether they are regressions and what is up with them.

[Meathead]

Awesome cant wait for it!