Trees via SpeedTree

At first SpeedTree is a pretty intimidating program, once I sort of got the hang of it I noticed that within just a few simple steps triangle count can skyrocket into the tens of thousands! But did some research and found that the target poly count should be around 8k to 15k for games, the first thing that came to my mind was the game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, those trees are so beautiful and high poly looking, how did they pull it off? I jumped into the game and spent some good time just studying the trees, at last I found the secret. Though they've taken optimization a step further than I have, I'm not far off. The secret is to optimize the heck out of the trunk and branches (low triangle count), and at the end of each branch place a generated mesh (much like the shape of a shovel head, or rooftop) that does not move (not camera facing billboards), then on the branch between the generated mesh and the trunk place centered camera facing cards to give the look of fullness! Brilliant. Here are the results (note: all textures were created by me except the pine needles, SpeedTree includes a nice pine needle texture and I didn't see the need to reinvent the wheel) -

Weighing in at just over 8k tris, a beautiful old oak tree:

And at just over 4k tris, a wonderful and tall pine tree: