Vegetation animation on non-terrain mesh? [YES]

This is really great! I've been looking for and experimenting with shaders to achieve this exact effect. All. Day. Long.

Would you consider sharing a sample project or exported package that includes your modified shader and an example material and test scene? It would be a truly tremendous resource for me, and likely for other Unity shader newbies, to learn from! Pretty please? :)

@AlwaysSunny: Well I've just discovered a package that seems to do the same thing and then some: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/133398-Advanced-foliage-shader-released. The only thing I'm not sure about is if it's compatible with Unity 4 and DX11. I have asked the question but haven't heard back from the author yet.

Meanwhile, here's my simple shader solution:

 Shader "Custom/WavingDoublePass" {
 Properties {
     _WavingTint ("Fade Color", Color) = (.7,.6,.5, 0)
     _MainTex ("Base (RGB) Alpha (A)", 2D) = "white" {}
     _WaveAndDistance ("Wave and distance", Vector) = (12, 3.6, 1, 1)
     _Cutoff ("Cutoff", float) = 0.5
     _Cutoff2 ("Cutoff2", float) = 0.5
 }
 
 SubShader {
     Tags {
         "Queue" = "Geometry+200"
         "IgnoreProjector"="True"
         "RenderType"="Grass"
     }
     Cull Off
     LOD 200
     ColorMask RGB
 
 CGPROGRAM
 #pragma surface surf Lambert vertex:WavingGrassVert addshadow alphatest:_Cutoff2
 #pragma exclude_renderers flash
 #include "TerrainEngine.cginc"
 
 sampler2D _MainTex;
 fixed _Cutoff;
 
 struct Input {
     float2 uv_MainTex;
     fixed4 color : COLOR;
 };
 
 void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) {
     fixed4 c = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex) * IN.color;
     fixed4 d = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex);
     o.Albedo = c.rgb;
 //    o.Alpha = c.a;
     o.Alpha = d.a;
     clip (o.Alpha - _Cutoff);
 //    o.Alpha *= IN.color.a;
 }
 ENDCG
 }
 
     SubShader {
         Tags {
             "Queue" = "Geometry+200"
             "IgnoreProjector"="True"
             "RenderType"="Grass"
         }
         Cull Off
         LOD 200
         ColorMask RGB
 
         Pass {
             Tags { "LightMode" = "Vertex" }
             Material {
                 Diffuse (1,1,1,1)
                 Ambient (1,1,1,1)
             }
             Lighting On
             ColorMaterial AmbientAndDiffuse
             AlphaTest Greater [_Cutoff]
             SetTexture [_MainTex] { combine texture * primary DOUBLE, texture }
         }
         Pass {
             Tags { "LightMode" = "VertexLMRGBM" }
             AlphaTest Greater [_Cutoff]
             BindChannels {
                 Bind "Vertex", vertex
                 Bind "texcoord1", texcoord0 // lightmap uses 2nd uv
                 Bind "texcoord", texcoord1 // main uses 1st uv
             }
             SetTexture [unity_Lightmap] {
                 matrix [unity_LightmapMatrix]
                 combine texture * texture alpha DOUBLE
             }
             SetTexture [_MainTex] { combine texture * previous QUAD, texture }
         }
     }
 
     Fallback Off
 }

Just to confirm that the page I linked to indeed offers a very nice solution for manually placing vegetation by hand and still have leaves/branches waving in the wind. It's 10 bucks, but in my opinion it's well worth it.

Thankyou Seith for all the informations.

Please can you you explain how to use the above code? I copy it to a shader, set the sader on a custom mesh, and then i just see a texture. what assets and steps do i need to make foliage on above texture? does it work automatically with terrain assets loaded into Unity?

i was looking around for more information on this subject, as im not familiar with using shaders or anything and i have a landscape that is not an official "terrain". i found on the asset store these nice palm trees that wave, and after just reading this i decided to look at the code for the shaders and see if i could figure it out (i cant). but anyway it looks like the shader hes using is based off yours (or the other way around, idk) with an added bump map and specular, and has two different versions with backface culling and no culling, and also the prefabs that come with the asset are preconfigured to work out of the box, so it really helps to understand how to apply this to a mesh. the link to the asset is this : https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/13540

(really nice looking palm trees he has there btw, the shader must work well lol)