Grass, trees & foliage
Grass, trees and foliage need to look dense while staying cheap. This section covers GPU instancing, wind animation, billboards, interactive grass, LODs and stylised leaf shading. Read it before you scatter ten thousand blades of grass. 29 hand-picked Unity guides, tutorials, videos and repos, kept current.
- Outbound’s clip shader approach: Precise foliage discarding for real-time environments
A clip-shader technique for discarding foliage precisely, stopping grass poking through vehicles.
unity.com · Dec 2025 - GPU Instanced Grass Breakdown
Breakdown of GPU instanced grass using Shader Graph with DrawMeshInstanced APIs.
cyanilux.com · Oct 2025 - Grass System for URP
Patreon post on a URP grass system for Unity.
patreon.com · ~Jun 2025 - Optimizing Performance for Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown
Custom vegetation system built to optimize performance in a lush open game.
unity.com · Jun 2025 - Grass System Patreon post
Patreon post on a grass system for Unity.
patreon.com · ~Mar 2024 - Stylized Grass with Wind Effect Shader Graph in Unity Engine - Step by Step Tutorial
Builds stylized grass with wind in Shader Graph.
youtube.com · ~Feb 2024 - GitHub - GarrettGunnell/Shell-Texturing: Volumetric rendering of fur
Repo: volumetric fur rendering using shell texturing.
github.com · Oct 2023 - Even Better Interactive Grass System
Improved interactive grass system for Unity.
youtu.be · Mar 2023 - Very experimental grass system
Devlog describing an experimental grass rendering system.
echoesofsomewhere.com · Feb 2023 - Six Grass Rendering Techniques in Unity
Compares six different ways to render grass in Unity.
danielilett.com · Dec 2022 - Soft Foliage Shader Breakdown
Breakdown of a soft foliage shader using alpha clipping with a foliage texture.
cyanilux.com · ~Mar 2021 - Grass Shader
Developer's write-up on building a real-time grass system in a custom engine.
giordi91.github.io · Sep 2020 - My take on shaders: Stylized tree leaves – Harry Alisavakis
Tutorial on a stylized tree leaves shader.
halisavakis.com · ~Mar 2020 - Shader Showcase Saturday #3: Interactive Grass
Creates interactive grass that reacts to wind and player movement.
alanzucconi.com · Jul 2018 - Handpainted Grass
Patreon post on handpainted grass.
patreon.com · Apr 2018 - Pine Tree
Patreon post modeling a pine tree.
patreon.com · Mar 2018 - Stylized Tree
Patreon post modeling a stylized tree.
patreon.com · Sep 2017 - Tree Build-up
Patreon post building up a tree model.
patreon.com · Feb 2017 - Dark Maus – Top Down Trees
Looks at how top-down trees are rendered in Dark Maus.
simonschreibt.de · Feb 2016 - Diablo 3 – The sacred spiderweb
Looks at the sacred spiderweb effect in Diablo 3.
simonschreibt.de · Jan 2016 - Fur shading in Unity3D
Fur shading in Unity (Patreon members-only post).
alanzucconi.com · Jun 2015 - Oblivion Territory: Tree vs. Palm
Compares the tree and palm in Oblivion territory design.
simonschreibt.de · Nov 2013 - World of Torch Siege – Blended Trunks
Breaks down how World of Torch Siege blends tree trunks into the terrain, with the author's anecdotes.
simonschreibt.de · Sep 2013 - Airborn – Trees
Describes how Airborn builds its trees with simple billboard and mesh tricks.
simonschreibt.de · Feb 2013 - Diablo 3 – Trees
Explains the special look of Diablo 3's trees and how they are built.
simonschreibt.de · Jan 2013 - Stylised Tree Development
Portfolio write-up on developing stylised trees.
benedicttargett.wordpress.com - How do Major Video Games Render Grass?
How major games render grass.
youtube.com - Crumble: Platform Game Mechanics & Shaders in Unity
Developer breakdown of Crumble: ball and soft body mechanics, grass and watercolor shaders.
80.lv - Chapter 7. Rendering Countless Blades of Waving Grass
GPU Gems chapter on rendering vast fields of waving grass blades.
developer.nvidia.com