I'm working on my first outdoor environment and I want to add a few swaying trees and plants. I hoped it would be as simple as checking the "enable wind" box in the material editor, but that turned my preview icon to a pink and black checker pattern, and displayed as a "broken" red wireframe texture in-game. I tried adding env_wind and following the instructions at https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$treeSway and https://gamebanana.com/tuts/12924, but without success. I may have edited the script incorrectly, but I suspect those tutorials are not applicable to the SteamVR Environments. They refer to VMT, instead of VMAT, and the syntax for the parameters is full of dollar signs ($), which I don't see in the VMAT.

How does one create the wind effect for plants in SteamVR?

This will be my first attempt at a tree, but I imagine that I would make the trunk and large branches as a single mesh, with either a tiled or UV-mapped bark material. I would then group it with multiple individual quads with alpha-tested, double-faced materials for leaves and small branches. Assuming that's the correct approach, are there any tricks to making the trunk/modeled branches and leaves/2-d branches move naturally in relation to each other?