Stylized Fluffy Tree Leaves

🌿 Stylized Foliage Shader (Billboard + Wind + Fresnel)

A stylized foliage shader for Godot 4 (spatial/3D) based on j-hell‘s original billboard shader, with several enhancements and customizations. Designed to create dreamy, fluffy-looking foliage with dynamic wind, fresnel lighting, and billboard effects.

Features

Billboard control – adjustable facing with billboard_strength
Wind sway – animated leaf movement with tunable speed, direction, and strength
Fresnel effect – rim lighting based on view angle for stylized glow
Alpha discard – clean cutout using the green channel of your texture
Custom color blending – tune foliage tone and mix strength
Normal flipping – useful for double-sided rendering
Texture scaling – match different texture densities

Included

Multiple leaf texture variations
Original Illustrator (.ai) source file

Inspired By

Notes

Shader uses the green channel for alpha transparency
Best suited for stylized trees, bushes, or low-poly foliage
Modified with help from ChatGPT to add custom effects and controls

Shader code

shader_type spatial;

render_mode depth_draw_always, alpha_to_coverage, unshaded;

// Texture and visual control
uniform sampler2D foliage_texture;
uniform vec2 texture_scale = vec2(1.0, 1.0);
uniform float alpha_threshold : hint_range(0.0, 1.0) = 0.1;

// Color control
uniform vec3 foliage_colour : source_color = vec3(0.13, 0.33, 0.25);
uniform float color_strength : hint_range(0.0, 2.0) = 1.0;

// Fresnel blend
uniform vec3 fresnel_colour : source_color = vec3(0.5, 0.7, 0.4);
uniform float fresnel_strength : hint_range(0.0, 1.0) = 0.3;
uniform float fresnel_power : hint_range(0.1, 5.0) = 1.5;

// Billboard effect control
uniform float billboard_strength : hint_range(0.0, 1.0) = 1.0;
uniform vec2 vertex_offset_scale = vec2(1.0, 1.0);
uniform bool flip_normal = true;

// Wind sway control
uniform bool use_wind = true;
uniform float wind_strength : hint_range(0.0, 1.0) = 0.1;
uniform float wind_speed : hint_range(0.1, 5.0) = 1.0;
uniform vec3 wind_direction = vec3(1.0, 0.0, 0.0);

void vertex()
{
    if (flip_normal) {
        NORMAL = -NORMAL;
    }

    // Billboard positioning
    vec2 viewspace_offset = (UV - vec2(0.5)) * vertex_offset_scale;
    vec4 modelspace_offset = inverse(MODELVIEW_MATRIX) * vec4(viewspace_offset, 0.0, 0.0);
    VERTEX += modelspace_offset.xyz * billboard_strength;

    // Wind sway (optional)
    if (use_wind) {
        float sway = sin(TIME * wind_speed + UV.x * 5.0) * wind_strength;
        VERTEX.xyz += wind_direction * sway;
    }
}

void fragment()
{
    vec2 scaled_uv = UV * texture_scale;
    float alpha = texture(foliage_texture, scaled_uv).g;

    if (alpha < alpha_threshold) {
        discard;
    }

    // Fake Fresnel effect: based on view direction and normal
    vec3 view_dir = normalize(-FRAGCOORD.xyz);
    float fresnel = pow(1.0 - dot(NORMAL, view_dir), fresnel_power);
    vec3 final_color = mix(foliage_colour, fresnel_colour, fresnel * fresnel_strength);

    ALBEDO = final_color * color_strength;
    ALPHA = alpha;
}