Trees lose leaves in winter

[RIPReuben]

All deciduous trees should lose their leaves in the winter the same way that fruit trees do. Perhaps also leaf piles in the fall that blow away when there is strong wind? Idk but I just want my trees to be bare in the winter.

[Facethief]

This would be nice, but the non-branchy leaves would have to have some kind of branch/twig texture added inside of the block model, so that they wouldn’t be completely invisible.

[LadyWYT]

I'm also thinking potential performance issues. Forests are already a bit rough on performance, and I imagine it'd be much worse if all the leaf blocks had to be seasonally accounted for, even if it's just a texture. It could probably work, but it should also likely have some sort of a toggle in the Graphics menu, so that it doesn't crater performance on lower-end hardware to the extent that the game is unplayable.

14 hours ago, RIPReuben said:

Perhaps also leaf piles in the fall that blow away when there is strong wind?

Yeah, I dunno about this one. I think it's better to just stick to the forest floor textures in the places where there's a lot of trees, and not worry about it otherwise. If there's actually leaf piles whenever the trees shed leaves, that is realistic, but that's also something that would need to be accounted for every single autumn. In which case, what happens when it's winter, or even spring/summer? Do all the dead leaves just disappear?

[Facethief]

7 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm also thinking potential performance issues. Forests are already a bit rough on performance, and I imagine it'd be much worse if all the leaf blocks had to be seasonally accounted for, even if it's just a texture. It could probably work, but it should also likely have some sort of a toggle in the Graphics menu, so that it doesn't crater performance on lower-end hardware to the extent that the game is unplayable.

I actually don’t think it’d be that bad. Given that leaves change colors with temperature, there could be a margin where the leafy part of the leaf blocks becomes transparent, with this point not existing for evergreen trees.

[LadyWYT]

5 minutes ago, Facethief said:

I actually don’t think it’d be that bad. Given that leaves change colors with temperature, there could be a margin where the leafy part of the leaf blocks becomes transparent, with this point not existing for evergreen trees.

Possibly--it'd mostly be a concern for lower end hardware, hence why I suggested included a toggle in the Graphics for such a thing. That being said, I also wouldn't want to chew up a lot of processing power making leaves look a little prettier, when those same system resources could be put to use elsewhere.

[DakotaGrey]

On 11/20/2025 at 9:59 AM, LadyWYT said:

I'm also thinking potential performance issues. Forests are already a bit rough on performance, and I imagine it'd be much worse if all the leaf blocks had to be seasonally accounted for, even if it's just a texture. It could probably work, but it should also likely have some sort of a toggle in the Graphics menu, so that it doesn't crater performance on lower-end hardware to the extent that the game is unplayable.

Yeah, I dunno about this one. I think it's better to just stick to the forest floor textures in the places where there's a lot of trees, and not worry about it otherwise. If there's actually leaf piles whenever the trees shed leaves, that is realistic, but that's also something that would need to be accounted for every single autumn. In which case, what happens when it's winter, or even spring/summer? Do all the dead leaves just disappear?

Maybe a leaf texture that piles up like snow? I agree it might cause performance issues though.  You mentioned the option to toggle things on/off in the settings and I think that might be a workable compromise. The problem I see is how do you program the leaves to only pile up around trees?  If the system has to process every trees' radius, then performance is going to tank. Snow at least is everywhere except climates that don't get snow.  It would be a bit weird having giant piles of leaves show up in the middle of the plains or evergreen forests.

[MKMoose]

7 hours ago, DakotaGrey said:

Maybe a leaf texture that piles up like snow? I agree it might cause performance issues though.  You mentioned the option to toggle things on/off in the settings and I think that might be a workable compromise. The problem I see is how do you program the leaves to only pile up around trees?  If the system has to process every trees' radius, then performance is going to tank. Snow at least is everywhere except climates that don't get snow.  It would be a bit weird having giant piles of leaves show up in the middle of the plains or evergreen forests.

One way to do this could be to borrow the chunk-based accumulation from snow, reducing both RAM and CPU load significantly compared to per-block calculations, albeit potentially sacrificing some of the aesthetics. The game would probably just need to occasionally recalculate the number of leaf blocks in each chunk and build a density map out of it, then reuse it for generating leaves in the same way that snow is generated now.

Overall I like the idea for layer-based accumulation similar to snow, as it would be consistent with other features in the game and wouldn't be excessively difficult to implement.

[LadyWYT]

15 hours ago, DakotaGrey said:

The problem I see is how do you program the leaves to only pile up around trees?

Assuming that the calculations could work similar to snow, and not impact performance too severely, I would say it might be as easy as only allowing leaves to accumulate on forest floor. That way the deep woods and forest will have dead leaves covering the forest floor, where it makes the most sense, but lone trees and shrubs out in the grasslands won't really be affected. Of course, this also means that player-planted trees won't have dead leaves underneath them either...

Realistically, I'm not sure that it should be something that affects only deciduous trees. Granted, conifers don't shed their leaves yearly, but pine forest will still have a carpet of pine needles covering its floor. Perhaps another type of forest floor could be added to add some difference between deciduous forest and coniferous forest?

[DakotaGrey]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Assuming that the calculations could work similar to snow, and not impact performance too severely, I would say it might be as easy as only allowing leaves to accumulate on forest floor. That way the deep woods and forest will have dead leaves covering the forest floor, where it makes the most sense, but lone trees and shrubs out in the grasslands won't really be affected. Of course, this also means that player-planted trees won't have dead leaves underneath them either...

Realistically, I'm not sure that it should be something that affects only deciduous trees. Granted, conifers don't shed their leaves yearly, but pine forest will still have a carpet of pine needles covering its floor. Perhaps another type of forest floor could be added to add some difference between deciduous forest and coniferous forest?

My biggest concern was that the leaf layers would be deep enough for it to look weird along the edge.  Deep leaf layers and then suddenly none sort of look.  If the leaf layers were kept thin though it might actually end up looking better in the end.  A lot of times leaves will pile up but there are still places where you can see through to the dirt.  The more I think about it the more I like it.  The trees planted by players would be out of place though and would honestly be a bit disappointing.  Perhaps the players could place forest floor blocks wherever they wanted them to build up.  It's an awkward work around but a passable one for those determined.  I imagine it would be a quick way to fry a computer if it was programmed to check every single tree.  I'm not a programmer so I can't honestly tell if there would be an easier work around.

[LadyWYT]

6 minutes ago, DakotaGrey said:

My biggest concern was that the leaf layers would be deep enough for it to look weird along the edge.

It probably would, unless it's a texture overlay. Leaf litter tends to kinda flatten out.

 

6 minutes ago, DakotaGrey said:

The trees planted by players would be out of place though and would honestly be a bit disappointing.  Perhaps the players could place forest floor blocks wherever they wanted them to build up.

Maybe, but you'd have to allow the player to pick up forest floor blocks somehow. Currently, forest floor just turns into dirt.

[DakotaGrey]

13 hours ago, MKMoose said:

One way to do this could be to borrow the chunk-based accumulation from snow, reducing both RAM and CPU load significantly compared to per-block calculations, albeit potentially sacrificing some of the aesthetics. The game would probably just need to occasionally recalculate the number of leaf blocks in each chunk and build a density map out of it, then reuse it for generating leaves in the same way that snow is generated now.

Overall I like the idea for layer-based accumulation similar to snow, as it would be consistent with other features in the game and wouldn't be excessively difficult to implement.

That's what I was hoping for.  They already have snow programmed in but as I said above, I'm not a programmer so I didn't know if it would work as easily as I hoped.  LadyWYT brought up forest floor blocks being the base for the leaf layers and I don't know if that would make it easier or harder.  Your method seems like it would work better around player planted trees while LadyWYT's method might be easier on the game. I'm not sure.  Or they could just cheat like the other block game and generate layers below as the world is generated and have those layers change color with the seasons.  Cherry blossom trees don't actually build up layers of leaves.  Honestly though, your method sounds more in line with what Vintage Story would do though.

[Heart_Afire]

Just to throw my own two cents in, I think the leaf litter and pine needle litter are both great ideas and could even be repurposed to have a use in game. Fallen leaves are already used for compost, and pine needles tend to make a good mulch if you don't mind the soil being a bit acidic. Since that's not a problem in VS, you could have the needles programmed to act similarly to the one Mulch mod, preventing moisture-loss over time (alternatively you could have it add a small protective temperature buff that stacks with a greenhouse).

As for the leaves, I would say that gathering them up with something like a shovel and then dumping them in a barrel could give you compost, even if you nerfed it to only 8 compost instead of 16?

[Hyrum Behnke]

I suggest TFC+ mod for Minecraft for what I would want. As it actually adds branches and leaf litter and everything people are suggesting here.