Ground cover in Low-poly Style for Babylon.js

About the Low-poly style

Low-poly vegetation is the cheapest style to render and to ship.

• Flat shading: one normal per face gives the crisp faceted look; no normal maps.
• Colour lives in vertex colours (glTF COLOR_0), so there are no textures, no UV work and almost no video memory.
• Leaves are solid geometry, not alpha cards: no alpha testing and no transparent overdraw, which matters on mobile GPUs.
• One material can be shared by every model in the scene, so trees batch and instance easily.
• Typical budgets range from a few hundred to a couple of thousand triangles at LOD0.

A good fit for mobile, WebGL/WebGPU, VR, strategy, city builders and stylised indie games. In the engine, use a material that multiplies by vertex colour.

Using it in Babylon.js

Babylon.js loads GLB through the glTF loader in @babylonjs/loaders: ImportMeshAsync (or SceneLoader.ImportMeshAsync in older code), or LoadAssetContainerAsync when you need many copies via instantiateModelsToScene.

• LOD: lod0.addLODLevel(30, lod1), addLODLevel(80, lod2) and so on; passing null as the mesh hides the object beyond that distance.
• Thousands of trees: thin instances (thinInstanceAdd with matrices) render in one draw call per mesh; use regular createInstance when each tree needs its own picking or logic.
• Leaves: glTF MASK maps to alpha-tested PBRMaterial (MATERIAL_ALPHATEST).
• Collision mesh: set isVisible = false and use it with checkCollisions or Havok physics (PhysicsAggregate with a MESH shape).