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2025 · Material / Pivot Painter

UE5 Foliage Wind System

A dynamic vegetation system using Pivot Painter data and velocity vectors so grass responds naturally to character position and movement.

Year: 2025
Type: Material / Pivot Painter

Process gallery

Process & Details

UE5 Foliage Wind System — Dynamic Vegetation System, image 1 — 01
Dynamic Vegetation System
I built the grass wind material using Pivot Painter and Unreal Engine’s Content Examples.
The material takes velocity vectors as input. In its current state, the grass can interact with character position and movement, allowing it to be pushed aside naturally. By using a Render Target to record character movement trajectories and velocity vectors, the system has the potential to support more advanced interactions, such as responding to gameplay abilities. Houdini was used to add pivot data and X-vector information to the meshes, which are then utilized in Unreal Engine material nodes to achieve the wind animation effect.
Grass static meshes are sourced from a Fab Marketplace vegetation asset pack — Temperate Vegetation: Optimized Grass Library.

UE5 Foliage Wind System — Dynamic Vegetation System, image 2 — 01
Dynamic Vegetation System
I built the grass wind material using Pivot Painter and Unreal Engine’s Content Examples.
The material takes velocity vectors as input. In its current state, the grass can interact with character position and movement, allowing it to be pushed aside naturally. By using a Render Target to record character movement trajectories and velocity vectors, the system has the potential to support more advanced interactions, such as responding to gameplay abilities. Houdini was used to add pivot data and X-vector information to the meshes, which are then utilized in Unreal Engine material nodes to achieve the wind animation effect.
Grass static meshes are sourced from a Fab Marketplace vegetation asset pack — Temperate Vegetation: Optimized Grass Library.

Tools

Technical stack.

Unreal Engine
Houdini
Pivot Painter
Render Target
Materials