Speedtree top-down billboards

Currently imported speedtrees don’t seem to have the top-down billboard on them even if you bake the top-down billboard in the modeler. Is this a problem with the modeler itself, or UE 4? The top-down billboards would be nice for any cases where the player might be above the trees (aircraft, mountain or anything).

Just wondering if I can fix this myself or if this needs to be fixed by IDV or Epic.

The UE4 SpeedTree importer does not currently put the horizontal billboard in the billboard mesh. We’ve gotten a question or two about this, so I’ll log to look into adding it as an option.

If you wish to do it right now, it should be fairly straightforward in theSpeedTreeImportFactory. There is horizontal data available coming out of SpeedTree, just like the vertical data. The shader code for the SpeedTree node will need to be tweaked, though, because I bet the non-camera-facing removal code won’t work quite right with the horizontal billboard without modification.

I would love to have that fixed, too.