Integrating UE4 Wind into non-speedtree trees

[Reazel]

Hello!

I’ve been working on a snowy mountain map, and I’ve been strugling with wind effect for my trees. Now, I know how SimpleGrassWind works, but what I’m looking for is a way to make trees sway, preferable in direction that DirectionalWindSource points. Problem is - I dont own SpeedTree and I dont see it becoming part of my workshop anytime soon.

Now, I see two ways to archive what i’m looking for:

1. I’ve tried using SpeedTree node with my own models. As as I know, when edited, SpeedTree trees are vertex painted, just the way I pain my own models, but this node gives me no result. Even more, when I tried to edit one of SpeedTree test assets, any change I did in modeling software destroyed the way tree reacted to wind. Is there a way to use SpeedTree node in non-speedtree models?

2. I’ve been trying to use node setup from Fighters example
   

   

This gave nice results, but with two major problems. Swaying looks pretty nice, but stops working in foliage mode. My bet is that ObjectRadius take all foliage as its “object”, making swaying so small its not noticable. Second problem is that I cant find a way to control its winds direction. Is there a way to put DirectionalWindSource parameters inside material?

Or am I bound to using SpeedTree for trees that react to DirectionalWindSource?

[Reazel]

Any suggestions?

[Vollgaser]

the directional wind source thing never worked for me, even with speedtree. i have a lot of them, lol.:
My self-made speedtree-nursery (still growing):

Project "tree nursery"

i see several solutions for you:
-make fixed animated plants and place them on the map in the direction you like the wind to be. kind of fixed wind direction then.
-make several animations for different wind directions and trigger the animations in the game via blueprint/c++. also proper blendspace would be nice if you change the wind direction dynamically

[Reazel]

Thats rather sad news, I’ve never touched animations in UE4. Thanks for your post !