Still far from ChatGPT's suggestion 😅

What I liked about the original code is that it demonstrates how to animate objects from a zero scale to the intended value since it gives the impression that things grow. This can be useful with all kinds of objects. Not just vegetation but also stuff like pillars could be animated like that.

I'm okay with all updates but I would prefer to keep the initial animation and let the tree "grow".

What I liked about the original code is that it demonstrates how to animate objects from a zero scale to something the intended value since it gives the impresses that things grow. This can be useful with all kinds of objects. Not just vegetation but also stuff like pillars could be animated like that.

I removed that when I added the shadow and I noticed that the objects in the shadow didn't animate.

Seemed like a foot-gun.

I see. In this case, I'm okay with the simplification. Maybe I can come up with an approach for a different or new example that works with shadows as well...

Nice! 😸
Still have the original one up here: https://oosmoxiecode.com/archive/js_webgl/recursive_tree_cubes/
Could link to that one instead of the web archive if you like.

Could link to that one instead of the web archive if you like.

Done!

BTW. I'm a huge admirer of your WebGL demos! I was so much fun to port recursive_tree_cubes to our new TSL approach 😊 .

@Mugen87 As a reflection example I am actually having a hard time to understand what's going on...

Could you explain these lines?

const reflection = reflector( { resolution: 0.5 } ); // 0.5 is half of the rendering view 
 reflection.target.rotateX( - Math.PI / 2 ); 

These lines create the reflector and align it with the floor. Notice that the reflector itself is a node object and not a 3D object like in earlier days. That allows to modify the effect with nodes and also use the reflection in subsequent node setups.

 reflection.uvNode = reflection.uvNode.add( floorNormalOffset ); 

If you remove this line, you end up with a perfect mirror that is mixed with the floor's diffuse texture. However, since the example models the reflection of a reflective tiles, a mirror like reflection would look strange. The above line adds a distortion similar to water effects by bending the uvs with a normal offset. Since the normal offset is derived from floorNormal, the resulting reflections should look convincing.

 const floorUV = uv().mul( 15 ); 
 const floorNormalOffset = texture( floorNormal, floorUV ).xy.mul( 2 ).sub( 1 ).mul( .02 ); 

The first line scales the default uvs, then we sample the floor's normal map, transfer the sampled color into the normal range and scale it down otherwise the scattering is way too strong.