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Dear Blender Community,

I am quite new to Blender but would like to create a game asset for Unity for my friend, and I need some help. As far as I’ve learned, game assets should be as low poly as possible to save capacity, so I decided to model the trunk and the branches of this tree as simple cubes. The trunk and branches were modeled separately and then combined using a boolean/union modifyer. To avoid the low-poly effect, I set everything to “shade smooth.” However, I’m encountering shading issues at the transitions between the trunk and the branches, which I can’t find a solution for. View with visible topoflow view of whole asset

What I’ve tried so far:

  • Different topology (see image)
  • Recalculate normals
  • Bevel at the transitions
  • Data transfer modifier from an object where the trunk and branches are separate meshes

Note: All vertices on the trunk are on the same plane.

What’s the solution here? My last resort would be to embed the branches as separate meshes inside the trunk. But I’d rather avoid that because I want it to be a single connected mesh.

Maybe you can help me out, and I can also learn something about topology.

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I wouldn't worry about combining the meshes, that's not absolutely necessary in games for most situations, especially not for trees and foliage. One trick I like to do to maintain the impression that it's a solid mesh is to use this technique.

Start with a branch and trunk mesh:

enter image description here

Assign these verts of the branch mesh to a vertex group.

enter image description here

Then add a few modifiers like this.

enter image description here

Which gives this result. Looks like it's joined together but the branch is still totally separate and editable.

enter image description here

enter image description here

Makes UVing alot easier too, just UV the single/handful of branches and then just distribute them around easy peasy. You could even set up geonodes/datatransfer setups to generate a tree and still do the Shrinkwrap/DT workflow.

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    $\begingroup$ Be sure to make linked duplicates, if you want to edit all the branches simultaneously, even after copying them a bunch. $\endgroup$
    – lajawi
    Commented Oct 20 at 15:29
  • $\begingroup$ Not exactly what I was looking for, but thank you for your answer and the time you took to make such a nice response. It helped me a lot. <3 $\endgroup$
    – Royal_Striker _
    Commented Oct 21 at 16:11
  • $\begingroup$ Sometimes when you're just starting out, you aren't exactly sure what answer you're even looking for. You might have a specific idea in mind but someone with more experience might tell you to disregard that option entirely. It's often known as an XY Problem $\endgroup$
    – Jakemoyo
    Commented Oct 28 at 15:09

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