About the Realistic style
Realistic models use the PBR metal/roughness workflow that glTF 2.0, Unity, Unreal, Godot and three.js read directly.
- Bark: base colour, normal and roughness maps on the trunk and branches.
- Leaves: alpha-tested (masked) cards with leaf-cluster textures, not alpha-blended, so they write depth, need no sorting and cast correct shadows.
- Bark and leaves use separate materials, which keeps draw calls predictable and works well with GPU instancing.
- LOD0 is the close-up mesh; LOD1–LOD3 drop branches and leaf cards, so the last level is light enough for far distances.
Best for first- and third-person games, survival, open worlds and simulators on PC and consoles. On mobile, start from LOD1 or LOD2 as the nearest level and watch overdraw from leaf cards.
Using it in Bevy
Bevy loads glTF/GLB through the AssetServer: asset_server.load(GltfAssetLabel::Scene(0).from_asset("tree.glb")), spawned with SceneRoot; individual meshes and materials are addressable by label. FBX and OBJ need third-party crates, so GLB is the format to use.
- LOD: give the LOD0–LOD3 entities a
VisibilityRange(start and end margins) for distance switching with dithered crossfade — Bevy's HLOD mechanism. - Leaves: glTF alphaMode MASK becomes
AlphaMode::Mask(cutoff)onStandardMaterial, and double-sided materials disable back-face culling. - Entities that share a mesh and material are batched and instanced automatically, so many tree copies stay cheap.
- Collision: Bevy has no built-in physics; build a collider from the collision mesh with Avian or bevy_rapier.
