Is it possible to create static mesh trees using this? When I merge the actors, it puts all of the leaves off to the side of the trunk stacked on top of each other. I have also tried converting the actor to a static mesh (via 4.14’s new right-click feature) and it does the same thing. I am wanting to create a landscape of trees but I would guess that the blueprint trees that get generated are not as performance friendly as instanced static meshes.
[QUOTE=UpRoar Studios;640076]
How would I go about adding my own trees into the forest maker?
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In the ForestMaker properties there is a ‘Trees to Spawn’ list. Just click the ‘+’ sign to add new element and pick your saved tree.
[QUOTE=EMcNine;640802]
Is it possible to create static mesh trees using this? When I merge the actors, it puts all of the leaves off to the side of the trunk stacked on top of each other. I have also tried converting the actor to a static mesh (via 4.14’s new right-click feature) and it does the same thing. I am wanting to create a landscape of trees but I would guess that the blueprint trees that get generated are not as performance friendly as instanced static meshes.
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Unfortunately the UE Merge Actors tool is still bugged and it merges the trees only partially, resulting in bad material assignment, leaf locations & pivot point. I’ve tried to find some workaround, but without luck - I’m afraid that I can’t do anything about it on my end, we can only wait for Epic to fix the merging.
[QUOTE=Slavq;640822]
Unfortunately the UE Merge Actors tool is still bugged and it merges the trees only partially, resulting in bad material assignment, leaf locations & pivot point. I’ve tried to find some workaround, but without luck - I’m afraid that I can’t do anything about it on my end, we can only wait for Epic to fix the merging.
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I found a workaround to use for now. Select the actor in the level, go to file>export selection. Export as an FBX. Bring this into Maya. Select all and freeze transformations. Finally, re-export from Maya as an FBX, import into engine, and apply the materials. Its not perfect but it does a pretty good job. Any LODs could be made using the built in LOD generation in 4.14.
In this picture, the tree on the left is the FBX from Maya. The tree on the right is the blueprint.
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[QUOTE=EMcNine;640837]
I found a workaround to use for now. Select the actor in the level, go to file>export selection. Export as an FBX. Bring this into Maya. Select all and freeze transformations. Finally, re-export from Maya as an FBX, import into engine, and apply the materials. Its not perfect but it does a pretty good job. Any LODs could be made using the built in LOD generation in 4.14.
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Thanks, I’m glad that you’ve found a workaround! I don’t have Maya so I can’t check it on my end - I’ve tried with Blender, but thisis what I got after importing 
… Blender has many problems with FBX import/export so probably that’s the cause.
It’s good that it’s possible with Maya though, that’s a nice idea with the ‘Export Selection’ option!
[QUOTE=Slavq;640863]
Thanks, I’m glad that you’ve found a workaround! I don’t have Maya so I can’t check it on my end - I’ve tried with Blender, but thisis what I got after importing … Blender has many problems with FBX import/export so probably that’s the cause.
It’s good that it’s possible with Maya though, that’s a nice idea with the ‘Export Selection’ option!
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Thanks! That does look odd. Perhaps if the blueprint was at 0,0,0 in world space before exporting?
[QUOTE=EMcNine;640864]
Thanks! That does look odd. Perhaps if the blueprint was at 0,0,0 in world space before exporting?
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Setting it to 0,0,0 world loc helps a little, but leaves are still displaced + some are stretched in weird way. That’s probably a Blender thing with its problematic FBX import/export. It’s a good news that it can be done through Maya though, thanks!
Merry Christmas Slavq! I’m having an issue when using FORMS. I am attempting to make one of my own and from the way I understand to do so is drag one into the editior and then select the top spline handle, hit alt to grab and slide it around. However when I hit alt it crashes UE4 for me. Is this an issue with Dynamic Tree and Plant or with my UE4 version. I am using 4.14.1 Thanks
Edited for more; I just noticed that it crashes when I select a TreePreset and drag it into the editor (duplicating BP has same outcome) When I hit the ‘x’ in the editor for clear path so I can start tweaking some settings it crashes as well.
[QUOTE=Winterstone;642674]
Merry Christmas Slavq! I’m having an issue when using FORMS. I am attempting to make one of my own and from the way I understand to do so is drag one into the editior and then select the top spline handle, hit alt to grab and slide it around. However when I hit alt it crashes UE4 for me. Is this an issue with Dynamic Tree and Plant or with my UE4 version. I am using 4.14.1 Thanks
Edited for more; I just noticed that it crashes when I select a TreePreset and drag it into the editor (duplicating BP has same outcome) When I hit the ‘x’ in the editor for clear path so I can start tweaking some settings it crashes as well.
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Merry Christmas!
I’ve tried to reproduce the crash in 4.14.1, but without luck. Alt-dragging spline point of FORM blueprints works fine on my end. Same when selecting tree presets and dragging them into editor, no crashes as well. Did you maybe modify some internal logic? Is your engine modified? Have you tried restarting your editor? Thanks!
[QUOTE=Slavq;642676]
Merry Christmas!
I’ve tried to reproduce the crash in 4.14.1, but without luck. Alt-dragging spline point of FORM blueprints works fine on my end. Same when selecting tree presets and dragging them into editor, no crashes as well. Did you maybe modify some internal logic? Is your engine modified? Have you tried restarting your editor? Thanks!
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Hi Thanks for the reply. So the crash is happening when I try to modify one of the FORM presets BP not the FORM BP. Uploading a youtube clip of it now. This is after restarting, restarting my Epic Launcher and starting a brand new project.
[QUOTE=Winterstone;642682]
Hi Thanks for the reply. So the crash is happening when I try to modify one of the FORM presets BP not the FORM BP. Uploading a youtube clip of it now. This is after restarting, restarting my Epic Launcher and starting a brand new project.
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Ah, now I got it. Please make sure that you have the ‘LOCK’ property unchecked before doing any adjustments. You can read more about ‘locking’ the FORM presets in the demo level instruction text.
Edit: I need to go sleep now, it’s 3:17 AM in my country If you have any other questions, I’ll try to answer them tomorrow as fast as possible. Thanks!
[QUOTE=Slavq;642683]
Ah, now I got it. Please make sure that you have the ‘LOCK’ property unchecked before doing any adjustments. You can read more about ‘locking’ the FORM presets in the demo level instruction text.
Edit: I need to go sleep now, it’s 3:17 AM in my country If you have any other questions, I’ll try to answer them tomorrow as fast as possible. Thanks!
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Thanks a lot for your help. It seems to work fine as long as its not ‘locked’. I’ll post more questions if I have them. Have a great night!
I’ve sent a new update (4.14) today, it should be available within a few days.
- New tree presets, palm tree & 2 pine trees. Preview:
New generation parameters:
- ‘Tree Scale’ parameter under General category, it allows to save tree presets with desired X/Y/Z scale.
- Possibility to auto-scale leaves (leaf planes) based on height - useful for trees like pine or spruce. It’s under Branches category, named ‘leaves-HeightScaling’
- High branches can automatically grow more upwards. Controllable by the ‘highBranchesGoUp_Strength’ and ‘highBranchesGoUp_StartHeight’ parameters, under Branch category.
- ‘Regenerate Locked Tree’ - it allows to quickly regenerate ‘locked’ trees without needing to un-check every ‘LOCK’ option.
- ‘Minimum Branch Thickness’ - useful for high trees with thin branches. It prevents making branches too thin at the very top of generated trees.
All my products are on sale now (Holiday Sale), by the way
Cheers!
Hey Slavq!
I’m trying to customize the trees with my own meshes, but I can’t figure out how the materials are applied.
When I change the “leaf branch” static mesh of a tree preset to one of the meshes you provided, it works just fine. When I change it to a custom mesh, it changes the mesh, but applies the leaf material of the specific tree preset. So when I set “leaf branch” to a chair for instance, I get the chair mesh with the leafbranch material (see images below).
Default Branches
Chair Branches
What am I missing? Do I have to customize the blueprint in some way, instead of just switching meshes?
Thanks!
@Efrye
Hey, please use the included master material (Materials/LeafBranches/LeafBranch_Master) for any custom branch meshes. The easiest way is to create a material instance of this material (or duplicate one of the existing instances) and assign your Color, Normal & Roughness textures in the parameters.
Thank you!
Thanks for your reply.
Using the LeafBranch_Master material unfortunately doesn’t give me enough control over the look of the leaves. I tried customizing the material, but none of my changes seem to have any effect.
In fact, even if remove all connections in the master material, the leaves in the scene still look exactly the same. 
Master Material (left), Scene (middle), LeafBranch Mesh (right)
Materials are dynamically created upon generation to allow all the individual per-tree dynamic features. It takes all master material parameters and stores them into a special multi-material for performance optimization. For example, the Materials/Branches/BranchMultiMat_2in1 material is used in most cases - modifying it should have a visible effect. You can read more about the multi-materials in the* Documentation_Basics_Part2* level.
So in this case (chair mesh as leaves), assign an instance of LeafBranch_Master to the chair mesh and if you want to modify the material, you can change e.g. branch leaf wind effect in the Materials/Branches/BranchMultiMat_2in1 material (there are comment boxes describing all the material sections)
Oh, I guess I overlooked that part in the documentation level.
I probably won’t be able to test it until tomorrow, but it sounds like it should work out if I modify the MultiMat materials.
Thank you once again!
Just bought this and it’s pretty great so far! However, when I put (approximately) over 100 trees in a Forest Maker, I get an infinite loop error.
My framerate also drops incredibly (down to 20-30 FPS) when I have a decent amount of trees, and my computer is pretty beefy. Any way around this?
@rabidworm333 Please go to the Edit > Project Settings > General Settings > Blueprints > Maximum Loop Iteration Count and change that to a higher number, e.g. by adding one ‘0’ at the end.
For FPS drop, please make sure that you have Billboard Manager placed in your scene. Do your trees turn into billboards when they’re far away, after starting Play in Standalone Window? If so, you can try to change billboard distance in the Billboard Manager. Does it happen also in the included ForestDemo map?
[QUOTE=Slavq;645221]
@rabidworm333 Please go to the Edit > Project Settings > General Settings > Blueprints > Maximum Loop Iteration Count and change that to a higher number, e.g. by adding one ‘0’ at the end.
For FPS drop, please make sure that you have Billboard Manager placed in your scene. Do your trees turn into billboards when they’re far away, after starting Play in Standalone Window? If so, you can try to change billboard distance in the Billboard Manager. Does it happen also in the included ForestDemo map?
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Oh alright, the max loop iteration count fixed it! Thanks!
As for the FPS lag, I didn’t have the billboard manager set up properly - my bad.
Thanks again for this fantastic product!