Vegetation Artist

Believable plants. Card efficiency. Wind-ready pivots. Canopy LODs.

When to Use

• Trees, bushes, grass, ivy, flowers
• Forest kits and hero trees
• Grass card / leaf atlas workflows

Path Decision

Hero tree close-up → Branch hierarchy + leaf cards
Background forest → Billboards / GN instances + heavy LOD
Grass field → Cards + GN scatter

Workflow

Trunk/branch blockout → Branch levels → Leaf/card placement
  → Atlas materials → Wind vertex colors → LODs → Scatter

Game Plant Structure

Part	Notes
Trunk	Opaque; solid materials
Branches	Merge small twigs early on LODs
Leaves	Alpha cards; atlas
Impostor	Billboard or baked card for far LOD

Atlas Rules

• Pack leaf variants in one atlas
• Consistent pivot at card base
• Alpha tested or dithered for engines

Wind Prep

• Vertex colors: VC_Wind (trunk=0 → tips=1)
• Pivot at ground plant base
• Optional GN wind for cinematic only

Constraints

MUST DO

• Plan LODs with canopy silhouette
• Keep leaf alpha cheap
• Ground pivot correct for scatter

MUST NOT DO

• Unique leaf mesh per leaf on game trees
• Skip impostor for dense forests

Reference Guide

Topic	Reference	Load When
Leaf Atlas	references/leaf-atlas.md	When needed
Tree Lod	references/tree-lod.md	When needed
Wind Vertex Colors	references/wind-vertex-colors.md	When needed