GPU Grass
Features
- Very little cpu usage. Almost everything is done on the GPU. The demo scene takes less than 0.05ms cpu on my machine.
- No hitches. CPU and GPU usage is steady. There are no hitches when new things come into view.
- LOD system.
- 1 - 3 lod levels.
- Vertex or pixel lit per LOD level. Objects up close can be rendered pixel lit and distant objects vertex lit.
- Shadow settings per LOD level.
- Dithering. LODs fade into each other and fade out at max draw distance.
- Procedural placement of objects on terrain based on masks.
- Custom texture mask.
- Slope of terrain.
- Height of terrain.
- Terrain layer.
- Multiple terrains. Each GPU Grass manager can render objects on multiple terrains with the same settings.
- Wind.
- Max draw distance per object and LOD.
- Align to ground. Objects can be aligned to the terrain. Unlike most grass solutions GPU Grass does not rotate the objects but instead movies their verts up or down keeping them straight. For example grass on a slope will not be rotated.
- View bending. Objects can be bent away from camera. Great for top down games for first person games where the player can look down.
- Thin over distance. Instead of culling objects at max draw distance they can be thinned out based on distance. For example grass close to the camera can be very thick but thinner in the distance.
- Placement based on random or blue noise. Blue noise can be used to place objects randomly but evenly spaced which is best for grass.
- Color and scale based on masks.
- Blend bottom of objects with the color of the terrain.
- Independant XZ and Y scale of objects.
- Terrain Holes.