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Struggling to Create High-Quality Grass for UE5 – Need Help Before I Go Insane
Hey everyone,
I’ve been trying every possible way to create high-quality grass (clumps, density per m², etc.) that is optimized and functional in Unreal Engine 5 with a 4070 Super. I’ve looked at some presets (like those from Quixel Bridge), and noticed that a single clump of grass can go up to 6000 tris — but with Nanite enabled, it drops to around 1000. These are complex clumps though, not just 8 blades but around 30 to 50.
I even downloaded SpeedTree and tried a bunch of different techniques, but I keep running into two main issues:
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Some clumps end up too small or lacking detail.
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Others look great but have way too many tris to be instanced thousands of times.
I also tested impostor techniques — they work decently starting from LOD 3 (maybe even LOD 2), but as soon as you get too close, it's very clear they’re just intersecting planes.
It’s been weeks and I’m starting to lose my mind. I just want AAA-quality grass that performs well in UE5.
If anyone has a solid workflow or tips to share, I’d be super grateful. I'm working with SpeedTree, Blender, Unreal Engine 5, and Substance.
Thanks in advance!
Replies
do the planes normals match the surface normals ? if they don't then their planar nature is pretty obvious
this is crossing planes admittedly with a pretty low res texture
Have you tried tutorials? Grass isn't just planes. The kind of grass you want is a multilayered terrain system with masks, procedural materials, and shaders. It's a lot of different systems meshing together that gives the effect you want. This could be a good starting point
Agree, also any normal map on the grass does nothing good IMO. Looks awful usually and mips out suddenly. The main issue is how to make it seamless to ground 2d grass material when 3d disappears. A huge part of grass appearance is light scattering / translucency when you see the grass glow toward the sun . it's usually a few dot product masks of light , ground surface and view vector in the shader . Same idea should be recreated in 2d grass beneath 3d one to be seamless at a distance . Typical PBR metal workflow doesn't work right for the grass texture IMO. it needs special hacks.