The Toby Foliage Engine / Light

Now more powerful than ever — and free. Bring your game worlds to life with Toby Foliage Engine (TTFEL) 2.0, a sleek, high-performance shader solution that delivers stunning, dynamic animated foliage.

TTFEL delivers optimized, realistic wind and plant shading through user-friendly, Amplify Shader Editor-crafted shaders. Seamlessly integrating with PBR shading, it uses mesh-based vertex position volumes for dynamic wind effects, customizable via material settings. There is no need for complex conversion steps, as the shaders streamline the process.

⚑ Limitations

The Light version offers essential features with a single wind type. Amplify shader functions are unavailable, requiring code-based shader access. Upgrade to the full version for all features: The Toby Foliage Engine 2.0

• Limited to the Gentle Breeze wind type; Strong Wind is available in the full version.
• Static batching and GPU instancing are not supported (GPU instancing requires third-party tools).
• Only the latest LTS Unity versions are officially supported.
• Only basic Global Controller settings are available.
• Amplify Shader functions are unavailable; shader access requires code-based editing.
• Wind and season sliders may lag in larger scenes.
• Vegetation assets sold separately: Vegetation Pack - Toby Foliage Engine Assets

○ Features

• Gentle Breeze wind system with natural, realistic behavior.
• Adjustable global wind and seasonal settings via the TTFE Global Controller.
• Basic branch and trunk bending.
• Real-time season control with randomized color variation.
• High-quality PBR shading with faux-mobile self-shading.
• Specular backface occlusion.
• Specular Fade support: Allows fine-tuning of the Fresnel effect using color properties or a texture map in HDRP. Works with the terrain and mesh shader.
• Additional mesh shaders.
• Three example scenes.
• Original foliage assets.
• Now fully compatible with the full version of TTFE.

🞫 Unavailable Features Below (Full Version Only)

User Interface and Control

• Dynamically switch between seasons with support for snow, wetness, randomized color variations, and contrast adjustments.

Wind Systems

• Dual wind system with Strong Wind type for greater realism.
• Advanced trunk and branch bending features.
• Dynamic Wind Interaction: Supports player and physics-based interactions with plants, including cloth physics for natural movement.
• Cloth: Additional wind options for cloth simulation.

Shading and Rendering

• Deferred Translucency system featuring Translucency AO (automatic shadow occlusion) – works in Built-in, URP, and HDRP with HDRP diffusion profile compatibility.
• Translucency Fluffiness: Creates a fuzzy, natural appearance for grass and foliage.
• Full Terrain Shader: Full integration with terrain systems, supporting snow and seasonal effects.
• Perspective Correction: Adjusts grass angles for optimal viewing from top-down perspectives.
• Custom Normals: A secondary normal map set for custom normals.
• Emission: Supports emissive materials on fluorescent plants for a striking effect.
• Dual color: Utilize dual colors to create a more vivid albedo effect, enhancing the intensity of your plants, particularly for fantasy and alien varieties.

Additional Features

• Amplify Shader Functions: Robust support for advanced shader customization.
• Full Mesh Shader Integration: Seamlessly integrates with the TTFE controller for consistent behavior across assets.
• Appendices System: Enables attachment of hanging objects to main bodies or pivots for dynamic effects.
• Material Matcher: A utility for aligning material properties across assets.
• Terrain Plants to Prefab Converter: A non-destructive converter tool that transforms terrain plants into prefabs.
• Amplify Impostor integration: Custom impostor shaders that utilize the default texture packing used by TTFE. Supports all the season effects and works with the Global Controller.

○⚑ Terrain Requirement

⚑ To ensure compatibility with the Global Controller (TTFE) when using prefabs as terrain trees or details on either Unity's default terrain or TTFE terrain, at least one instance of each prefab mesh with its associated material must be present in the scene. Without an instance of each material, the Global Controller will not function correctly.

⚑ Cross-fading is not supported with instancing for now and will break instancing when enabled.

⚑ Any Unity version lower than 6.0.71f1 has been discontinued and won't be supported. The shaders only function in Unity 6.0.71f1+!

○ Feedback

For questions, follow the Unity Discussions thread or contact me via email:

[email protected]

Support Discussions Thread

Online Documentation