Is the ability to take the first tree and convert it to the 2nd tree part of the mesh tools, if so, how was that done? Otherwise, how could I achieve something similar using Blender and Megascan trees?
It would be very useful for my current project as the areas in the centre, with all the Lumen and Nanite stuff going on, are a significant performance drain relative to everything else.
Everything in that picture sequence was made using Unreal modeling mode. The first mesh is TEST_TreeFall02 StaticMesh from QAGame and in that mesh the leaves and small branches are rendered with textured quads that have a different material to the trunk mesh. The steps we used to make the second mesh were something like the following:
Separate the leaves from the trunk. Run the Select>Mesh Edit tool, select a leaf triangle then press Selection Edits>Expand to Material, Selection Edits>Invert and Mesh Edits>Separate and Accept the tool.
Give the leaves mesh some volume. Run the Voxel>VoxelOffset tool on the leaves mesh. Set Thicken Shells to ~1.0 and enabling the “Vox Wrap” and “Remove Internals…” checkboxes under the the Vox Wrap Preprocess options and Accept the tool
Make the mesh a bit leafier. Run the Deform>Displace tool with Options>Subdivisions to 0 (the voxelization in the previous step created triangles which are roughly the size of the leaves we’d like) and just fiddle with Options>Displace until you find a value you like then Accept the tool.
The picture attached is what I got by following the steps above. If the Megascans trees you’re using are rendered in a similar way then hopefully you’ll be able to get results you like, good luck!
