Species & Generators

26 species. L-system trees. Procedural rocks. Every one unique, every one customizable.

Species Overview

The species registry maps 26 definitions to procedural generators. Each species has customizable presets for bark, branching, leaf configuration, and seasonal tinting. OpenSim State IDs (0–20) ensure backward compatibility with Second Life and OpenSimulator content.

Twenty-five Oak instances in a tight central cluster on the green test terrain. Broad rounded canopies, dark green foliage, brown trunks. Atmospheric fog softens the back row. — **Oak** — broad rounded canopy, deciduous deep-green foliage. The default species; reads as classic deciduous forest.

Thirty Pine 1 trees clustered to the right of the terrain. Tall narrow conifer silhouettes with dark needled foliage and exposed bare lower trunks. — **Pine 1** — tall conifer pyramid, dark needled foliage. The L-system rules give each tree slight asymmetry, but the silhouette stays unmistakably evergreen.

Thirty Cypress 1 trees, narrow Italian-cypress columns with sparse foliage and visible reddish trunks. They cluster compactly on the terrain with one outlier on the right edge. — **Cypress 1** — narrow vertical column. Distinctive Italian-cypress silhouette, sparse foliage with the trunk visible top to bottom.

Thirty Plumeria trees scattered on the green terrain. Bushy, compact, bright-green canopies with no clear central trunk visible from this height — they read as ornamental shrubs more than forest trees. — **Plumeria** — short, bright-green, ornamental. Reads as shrub or garden tree rather than forest cover.

Thirty Japanese Maple trees scattered loosely across the terrain. Deep red foliage stands out sharply against the green ground. Each tree is small and compact, with the dark crimson canopy as its dominant visual feature. — **Japanese Maple** — deep red foliage, small ornamental form. Color contrast makes it useful as a focal accent species in mixed scatters.

Five of the 21 tree species, each shown at population 25–30 with the Clustered scatter pattern. Same camera, same terrain — only species changes.

Tree Species (21)

All trees are generated procedurally using L-system algorithms via the EzTreeAdapter. No static models — every tree is grown from rules.

Category	Species	State IDs
Pine	Pine, Scots Pine, Spruce, Fir, Larch	0–4
Oak	Oak, Red Oak, White Oak, Live Oak	5–8
Cypress	Cypress, Italian Cypress, Cedar, Juniper	9–12
Palm	Coconut Palm, Fan Palm, Date Palm	13–15
Bush	Bush, Hedge, Shrub, Flowering Bush, Berry Bush, Topiary	16–20

Rock Species (5)

Procedural rocks generated via scrape + Simplex noise. Each rock type has distinct characteristics:

Type	Character
Boulder	Large, rounded, scattered across hillsides
River Stone	Smooth, flat, found along waterways
Cliff Face	Angular, layered, for rocky outcrops
Mossy Rock	Rounded with green tinting, forest environments
Slab	Flat, wide, desert and plateau environments

Billboard Generator

For distant LOD levels, the billboard generator creates textured quads that always face the camera. Hundreds of distant trees render as a handful of billboards — keeping draw calls low while maintaining the illusion of a dense forest at distance.

Per-Species Scale

Every species has a baseline real-world scale. Sequoias are huge. Plumerias are small. The figure below shows five Giant Sequoias next to five Plumerias on the same terrain — both rendered at default scale, no manual scaling applied. Mixing species in one scene gives instant size variation without any tuning.

Five enormous Giant Sequoia trees with thick reddish-brown trunks and tall dark-green canopies stand on the green terrain. Five Plumeria bushes — small bright-green ornamental shrubs — sit beside the right-most sequoia, dwarfed by the tree's massive scale. The size contrast is dramatic. — **Figure.** Same scatter call, two species. Giant Sequoia (5) and Plumeria (5) at default `baseScale`. The size ratio is intrinsic to the species presets — no per-instance scale work required.

Customization

Every species preset is a JSON definition with deep-merge support. Override any property:

{
  "name": "Autumn Oak",
  "generator": "ez-tree",
  "preset": {
    "bark": { "color": "#5a3a1a" },
    "branch": { "levels": 4, "angle": 35 },
    "leaf": { "color": "#cc6622", "count": 800 }
  }
}

✅ Pro Tip

Use the species preview panel to see a rotating 3D preview of any species before scattering. Tweak presets interactively and see the result in real time.