Content
After Installing the Package you will find all content in the "Visual Design Cafe" folder in your project. The 3D models are located in the "Realistic Meadow" sub-folder, with separate folders for each vegetation category:
Each vegetation category folder contains prefabs that are ready to use. You can simply drag them into the scene to use them:
The "Realistic Meadow Overview" scene contains all the assets laid out for a simple overview:
Placing Objects
As prefabs
The easiest way to place the vegetation is to simply place the prefabs in the scene.
Placing large amounts of game objects can lead to performance issues, so we have included multiple variants of each object with merged meshes. Using merged meshes allows you to place more dense vegetation while keeping the game object count low.
For example, on the left in the screenshot below you can see an individual mesh, on the right is a mesh that contains multiple grass meshes merged into one:
Terrain
For mass placement on terrains, it is best to add the prefabs to the terrain and paint them using Unity's terrain tools. Note that Unity's rendering system is very limited, so the prefabs can't be added as Grass to the terrain. Instead, add them as Trees (unless you are using a third-party plugin!).
This makes it easy to place vegetation on the terrain, but the performance is similar to placing prefabs directly in the scene as individual game objects. Which means pretty bad performance when using large amounts of objects (make sure to use the merged meshes as described above in As Prefabs).
There is, unfortunately, no way around this when using Unity without plugins because Unity does not (yet) support the rendering techniques that are required to render large amounts of objects.
The best way to place and render the vegetation is to use a third-party plugin that enables efficient instancing. For this, we recommend Nature Renderer. Other alternatives are GPU Instancer, Vegetation Studio, or other tools on the Unity Asset Store.
Nature Renderer
Nature Renderer is specifically designed to render large amounts of vegetation on your terrain. The lead developer of Nature Renderer worked with the artist of this pack to ensure that the vegetation renders at high performance.
When using Nature Renderer, add the vegetation to the terrain as Grass and paint the vegetation on the terrain using Unity's terrain tools. You can find more information in Nature Renderer's Quickstart guide.