I disagree with this being in general superior to mesh-based decals. Texture / Shader based projections are nice and this is a good tutorial no questions asked, but don't dismiss Mesh decals that easily, they are great in terms of performance (thinking about runtime in a game engine here) because you use them together with small and tileable textures to create surfaces which would need huge texture resolution if baked and keep all the unique data as low as possible. The artist-time management overhead of not having to insert the projection into every material it should touch can also important at times. Nevertheless, good tutorial and the technique absolutely is worth knowing too, thanks for sharing.
You're right! This is a bit slower to make. Maybe something can be done with the asset browser? Do you want to explain why shrinkwrap is better for performance? I would think it's the other way around.
@@robinsquaresThanks for answering, sure, but keep in mind this comes from a game dev's / tech artist's perspective. There are multiple angles to this. Lets say you have a brick wall, fully textured front and backside, it uses one tileable 512x512 texture which is repeated various times over it and you add a bunch of mesh decals to it. The decal atlas texture might be 8k x 1k because we got a huge line of letters on it and a few other things. Both these reusable textures still need less memory than a single baked-decal 8k x 8k texture map. And memory, especially gpu memory, is precious :D The shrinkwrap as a projection method, deformer, is not cheap in terms of performance, absolutely not, in that regard you are thinking correctly, but applied... it's just another mesh. It is another draw instruction for the gpu, that is not for free but neither is the node group. Imagine you wan't to place 50+ decals on a huge spaceship doing that with a node group each will blow up the shader network. It really depends on the use case :)
@@NicCrimsonit has. Baked textures are relatively large compared to textures that you can tile. Sometimes it have sense when you are baking height/normal map that will replace lot of vertices. Some game engines like ie Vrage from Keen Software House can use central library of textures. Even with moded blocks. So you can use single texture on multiple models ( and multiple textures on single model too ). As example I will say that I created for this game particular block few years ago for one server Modpack. Due to phisic engine changes since then it had some issues. As I don't co-operate with that community anymore, this model was reworked recently, and new modeller, while he created really nice looking block, he used baked texture and not only mod become 30 times larger (8mb mine, 330mb new one), it got now some issues in game, as not only it doesn't render many times on weaker machines, it make huge performance impact on machines with less vram. On cards with more than 8 GB ram it performs actually better than mine as got less vertices, but gain is negligible compared to loses on weaker machines.
This is an extremely useful tutorial, so congratulations! Anyone that have tried Unreal Engine know that the decal workflow is extremely, extremely powerful, I just don't understand why Blender don't have a more straight forward way to work with decals. I know that Decal Machine addon exists, but I don't know if it's any good. Any way, your method is perfect, so again congratulations, I wish you a lot of success with your channel! I'm your subscriber 2211 I guess 😀
This is pretty much how DecalMachine does it (well DecalMachine is an addon does stuff automatically and its a bit more advanced in the shader department)
I had seen a couple tutorials since 1 month ago and I'm so glad to found a blender channel that covers and knows how to explain things everyone want to know! Thanks for sharing!
So in 3 months you grew from 65 to 14k subs. Well deserved, because this tutorial is awesome. While mesh-based decals certainly have their important use cases, I also mainly wanted to go with a method, that wouldn't generate z-fighting or have a visible distance between decal and surface. This is going to be very helpful!
I do it with different UV maps for each decal on the mesh base material. Soo... no need for extra meshes, shrinkwraps, nodes for placement and cut the backface texturing etc. Just one material, with different UV maps applied to different decal images, mixed and mapped together in shader editor. Plus you can mix in the normal, rughness, masks ....data into the base material... In my opinion that is better & quicker than extra meshes, empties, modifiers, nodes for backfacing etc.
This is treasure. I always open Unreal and I feel how my life would be so much easier if blender had a decal workflow like Unreal. This is crazy, Thank you so much for this invaluable tutorial.
This is an awesome trick! NGL I sub'd when your Trends to Avoid video came out, didn't even realize you were just getting started haha honestly though, this channel is going to the moon if this quality keeps up. Best of luck!
Great tip! I’ve been afraid to jump in to blender for some time now, coming from Max I was afraid of blenders shortcomings , but your tutorials makes the jump less scary. My new favorite 3D RUclipsr, keep em coming !🙌
As I gear up to return to my education on blender and all things 3d, your videos are excellent. I appreciate you taking the time to make these. Can't wait to see more. Cheers!
this is a great tutorial, im making an abandoned house and im adding graffiti decals to the walls this is literally the exact video i was looking for when i searched how to add decals to walls :)
super cool. I used to just paint in decal details like this onto a mask and mix that with the pbr material. But this allows for a lot more customizability later on. All techniques are useful for certain situations and its awome that you added a new way of doing it to the collection!
Nice I've been doing this for a while and had problems with the projection. Now only is there was an easy way to copy paste instead of having to create a new node for each decal.
This is great, I use it myself quite a lot. One thing to keep in mind is that there are issues with motion blur when the decal empty is parented to a moving object.
this is the way i used to do it in 3ds max, maya, c4d etc. Thanks for showing the correct method. I always used to see the shrink wrap method and used to think "what nonsense is this" unless its not an external object (which for some reason cant be embedded into the main object) theres no reason to use shrink wrap!
Originally I used this technique, but takes much much longer to build out your scene compared to shrinkwrap. Now I feel the best method is to use an addon todo this for you
It's funny how you have so less subscribers. You deserve much more. This technique was the one i was always trying to figure it out but couldn't do it by myself. You are a genius and thanks to you. Because of decals and lumen, i started working on unreal engine. But if blender's eevee next is similar to lumen, I'll get back to working in blender ❤❤. Once again thank you and please make such amazing tutorials. Love from India.
Seems to me it would be a lot easier just to make a second UV map based on a front projection, and then attach that UV map to the decal and then mix them. About 10% of the steps would be needed
Awesome, I love this. I don't have much experience with Unreal Engine yet, but would it be easy to convert this project to Unreal? Or is this method only best for Blender exclusive workflows? Idk how decals in Unreal work but I wanna work with it alongside Blender in the future. 🤔
This is the method i always use. But there is one problem. When i want to instance/duplicate an object which is textured in this method. If i move it to other places the textures wont stick. We have to duplicate that projection object and relink them for every individual copy with multiple shaders.
Alrighty, last question: the technique works perfectly on a dark surface, but as soon as I add the decal over a brighter surface the decal loses color/fades out. So odd. Any idea what would cause that?
Is there a way to extract only the rotation of the empty. This decal method is perfect for everything I need except the normal map. If I rotate the decal the normals will still be pointing in the same direction. I found a way to rotate normal map vectors but idk how to pull the Z rotation of the empty without using drivers.
![KSI - Thick Of It (feat. Trippie Redd) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/At8v_Yc044Y/mqdefault.jpg)
I disagree with this being in general superior to mesh-based decals. Texture / Shader based projections are nice and this is a good tutorial no questions asked, but don't dismiss Mesh decals that easily, they are great in terms of performance (thinking about runtime in a game engine here) because you use them together with small and tileable textures to create surfaces which would need huge texture resolution if baked and keep all the unique data as low as possible. The artist-time management overhead of not having to insert the projection into every material it should touch can also important at times. Nevertheless, good tutorial and the technique absolutely is worth knowing too, thanks for sharing.
You're right! This is a bit slower to make. Maybe something can be done with the asset browser?
Do you want to explain why shrinkwrap is better for performance? I would think it's the other way around.
@@robinsquaresThanks for answering, sure, but keep in mind this comes from a game dev's / tech artist's perspective. There are multiple angles to this.
Lets say you have a brick wall, fully textured front and backside, it uses one tileable 512x512 texture which is repeated various times over it and you add a bunch of mesh decals to it. The decal atlas texture might be 8k x 1k because we got a huge line of letters on it and a few other things. Both these reusable textures still need less memory than a single baked-decal 8k x 8k texture map. And memory, especially gpu memory, is precious :D
The shrinkwrap as a projection method, deformer, is not cheap in terms of performance, absolutely not, in that regard you are thinking correctly, but applied... it's just another mesh.
It is another draw instruction for the gpu, that is not for free but neither is the node group.
Imagine you wan't to place 50+ decals on a huge spaceship doing that with a node group each will blow up the shader network.
It really depends on the use case :)
@@fleity Very well articulated. Thanks for explaining that. I'll pin your comment to the top if that's okay.
@@fleityBut this doesn't matter if you are baking textures right?
@@NicCrimsonit has. Baked textures are relatively large compared to textures that you can tile. Sometimes it have sense when you are baking height/normal map that will replace lot of vertices. Some game engines like ie Vrage from Keen Software House can use central library of textures. Even with moded blocks. So you can use single texture on multiple models ( and multiple textures on single model too ). As example I will say that I created for this game particular block few years ago for one server Modpack. Due to phisic engine changes since then it had some issues. As I don't co-operate with that community anymore, this model was reworked recently, and new modeller, while he created really nice looking block, he used baked texture and not only mod become 30 times larger (8mb mine, 330mb new one), it got now some issues in game, as not only it doesn't render many times on weaker machines, it make huge performance impact on machines with less vram. On cards with more than 8 GB ram it performs actually better than mine as got less vertices, but gain is negligible compared to loses on weaker machines.
This is an extremely useful tutorial, so congratulations! Anyone that have tried Unreal Engine know that the decal workflow is extremely, extremely powerful, I just don't understand why Blender don't have a more straight forward way to work with decals. I know that Decal Machine addon exists, but I don't know if it's any good. Any way, your method is perfect, so again congratulations, I wish you a lot of success with your channel! I'm your subscriber 2211 I guess 😀
This is pretty much how DecalMachine does it (well DecalMachine is an addon does stuff automatically and its a bit more advanced in the shader department)
@@Cypoes.graphics I really need to test it properly, I'll give it a try! thank youu!
In a simple level in ue5 i use almost 100 plus decals 😂😂 can't live without them
Awesome tutorial! Sometimes the alpha from the normal map may give you the keyhole matte you need for the sewer grate
I had seen a couple tutorials since 1 month ago and I'm so glad to found a blender channel that covers and knows how to explain things everyone want to know! Thanks for sharing!
So in 3 months you grew from 65 to 14k subs. Well deserved, because this tutorial is awesome. While mesh-based decals certainly have their important use cases, I also mainly wanted to go with a method, that wouldn't generate z-fighting or have a visible distance between decal and surface. This is going to be very helpful!
Great technique and the perfect pace and level of instruction for a tutorial.
Genuinely worthy of a like and subscribe.
Wow, super cool technique! Thanks so much for sharing and teaching me something new in my Blender journey 🙏
I dream for a day that blender could implement an automatic way for the decal to append itself to any shader it needs to in decal groups.
you got a subscriber , i wanted this tutotrial for so long , every time i look for decal tutorial i found the shrinkwrap method , thnk you 🙏
You deserve a lot of subscribers. I just discovered your channel. It's like finding a new color!
I do it with different UV maps for each decal on the mesh base material.
Soo... no need for extra meshes, shrinkwraps, nodes for placement and cut the backface texturing etc.
Just one material, with different UV maps applied to different decal images, mixed and mapped together in shader editor.
Plus you can mix in the normal, rughness, masks ....data into the base material...
In my opinion that is better & quicker than extra meshes, empties, modifiers, nodes for backfacing etc.
This is the correct way
This is treasure. I always open Unreal and I feel how my life would be so much easier if blender had a decal workflow like Unreal. This is crazy, Thank you so much for this invaluable tutorial.
This is an awesome trick! NGL I sub'd when your Trends to Avoid video came out, didn't even realize you were just getting started haha honestly though, this channel is going to the moon if this quality keeps up. Best of luck!
Great tip! I’ve been afraid to jump in to blender for some time now, coming from Max I was afraid of blenders shortcomings , but your tutorials makes the jump less scary.
My new favorite 3D RUclipsr, keep em coming !🙌
65 subs turned into 2k real quick. Love the channel and can't wait to learn more!
I know right! I'm extremely grateful.
As I gear up to return to my education on blender and all things 3d, your videos are excellent. I appreciate you taking the time to make these. Can't wait to see more. Cheers!
this is a great tutorial, im making an abandoned house and im adding graffiti decals to the walls this is literally the exact video i was looking for when i searched how to add decals to walls :)
Finaly a decent solution to decals in blender! its super smart congrats🙌
super cool. I used to just paint in decal details like this onto a mask and mix that with the pbr material. But this allows for a lot more customizability later on. All techniques are useful for certain situations and its awome that you added a new way of doing it to the collection!
Just commenting to be part of your journey. Best of luck and keep up the quality.
Here to support! 👏✨
Nice I've been doing this for a while and had problems with the projection. Now only is there was an easy way to copy paste instead of having to create a new node for each decal.
I agree. It's an area where Blender could use some improvements.
Absolutely fantastic 🙏 Always struggled with decals projecting trough!
You articulate your ideas very well.
Finally! I use to do this in 3DS Max all the time much appreciated brother. 👌
Finally a proper decal tutorial for Blender!
Your tutorials are very practical and out if the box, i am assuming you are watching best of best content and here is the result.
Generally, I learned on the job.
Well, he did say in a different video that he quit goldbox
I am very happy we are getting a new blender channel, awesome stuff mah dude o7
A very underrated channel luckily I found ❤
I love the rising of your channel, I watched 3 videos just today. Keep making the great content 👍
Creating an addon for this would be amazing.
Someone just did (and even linked this video)… wonder what the video creator thinks?
This is great, I use it myself quite a lot. One thing to keep in mind is that there are issues with motion blur when the decal empty is parented to a moving object.
Good to know!
finally, something similar to projected decals like in game engines
I never subscribe when asked.
You earned it.
Good work.
this is the way i used to do it in 3ds max, maya, c4d etc. Thanks for showing the correct method. I always used to see the shrink wrap method and used to think "what nonsense is this" unless its not an external object (which for some reason cant be embedded into the main object) theres no reason to use shrink wrap!
WOW, thank you. This works fantastic!
Subscribed, and just picked up the addon and playing around with this bad boy as I'm typing this ....Well done my man!!!
From 65 subs to 10k in 2 months, well done! And super cool tutorial :)
Really enjoyable tutorial to watch, subbed and I hope your channel growth continues!
Ive tried for days to put graffiti on a displaced wall and this solved it
You got my subscription.
yo wait... what? a day ago you had 65 subs, and now ur 3k??!? congrats man! thats amazing! deserved, this tutorial is fantastic!!!
And now we want the baking process of that
Oh, I forgot to link one. Thanks for reminding me. In the meantime, just look up baking on RUclips. There's tons.
Meet one more new subscriber! Your channel is a lit!
That will be really useful for assetto track making
love it. congrats on your subscribe rate lately!
This was super helpful. Thank you 🙏 Looking at your sub count now, it looks like a lot of people agree. I’m happy to add one more to that number.
interesting workflow! Very refreshing and im gonna fiddle with it :) thanks!
this is great! thank you!
Originally I used this technique, but takes much much longer to build out your scene compared to shrinkwrap. Now I feel the best method is to use an addon todo this for you
It's funny how you have so less subscribers. You deserve much more. This technique was the one i was always trying to figure it out but couldn't do it by myself. You are a genius and thanks to you. Because of decals and lumen, i started working on unreal engine. But if blender's eevee next is similar to lumen, I'll get back to working in blender ❤❤. Once again thank you and please make such amazing tutorials. Love from India.
very smart workflow! Thanks for sharing!
This is good man
very good quality and thoughtful
Thank you
Am lucky today because I found my second precious rendering video in RUclips!!! the previous one was about decals in twinmotion.
this is gold
Woohooo...coming from Cinema4D, that was one of the things I was missing so much in Blender. Thanks Robin, this is amazing
Damn awesome, thank you
Vary cool technique! Thanks for sharing!
awesome thanks!!!
Amazing! This video is gold! Thanks for sharing man
Excellent work, excited to see more of your content
amazing 🧡
Broooooo u doin great useful tutorial
Just an amazing technique!
You're doing great work, keep it up!
I was looking for this technique for months. Thanks a lot, and as it was fairly easy, I feel kinda dumb ^^"
Thanks, subscribed.
this is so cool
Thats what i am talking about,fakin awesome dude!😊
Nice 👍
Another wizard in CG world
Great! - you earned a new subscriber :-)
Keep up the great work! give it some time, you obviously know what you are doing!
Ayoooo that's so helpful!!!!!! Thank you so much :>
Wish there was an add-on that automates all of this but hey, blender is blender
It was very helpfu, thank you! I wonder if there's a way to have a decal function like that without it being tied to a material, though?
I don't know if you're into add-ons, but a graffiti maker geometry nodes setup would be pretty cool, and not that hard.
Very nice
great video it is actually the video i needed thanks!!
Nice stuff
my guy is speedrunning youtube subscriber in one day lmao
Awesome tutorial, thank you. Well-deserved subscription from me. You will soon be on your way to 10k subs. 😀👍
I've learned like 500 shortcut keys from this video alone than my 3 years using blender.
Baking tut please 😊
Ohhh man !!! and it bakes !!!
Holy shit i had no clue this was even possible in blenders
I think you named that metal lid on the ground wrong. Personally i prefer "manhole" with it's respective cover
I have a manhole tutorial on my onlyfans
Nice tut thanks. If one has a full color logo, how can you keep the logo colors and the base color?
Seems to me it would be a lot easier just to make a second UV map based on a front projection, and then attach that UV map to the decal and then mix them. About 10% of the steps would be needed
You hereby have my permission to do it that way.
a lovely like and a BIG subscribe
WOW!
Awesome, I love this.
I don't have much experience with Unreal Engine yet, but would it be easy to convert this project to Unreal? Or is this method only best for Blender exclusive workflows? Idk how decals in Unreal work but I wanna work with it alongside Blender in the future. 🤔
Great and simple to understand! Seems that you have good tips for us about lighting also right?
Omg.. I already subscribed on previous video. If it goes like this you will need patreon o_-
This is the method i always use. But there is one problem. When i want to instance/duplicate an object which is textured in this method. If i move it to other places the textures wont stick. We have to duplicate that projection object and relink them for every individual copy with multiple shaders.
Shit good, very good
subscribed
Hello. This is extremely useful but i want to text decal on both side but other side is flipped can i solve that?
This is like fluent material decal addon.. Do you ever try that?
Alrighty, last question: the technique works perfectly on a dark surface, but as soon as I add the decal over a brighter surface the decal loses color/fades out. So odd. Any idea what would cause that?
Cool. There is no " right way ". There are only results either good or bad. :O)
Is there a way to extract only the rotation of the empty. This decal method is perfect for everything I need except the normal map. If I rotate the decal the normals will still be pointing in the same direction. I found a way to rotate normal map vectors but idk how to pull the Z rotation of the empty without using drivers.
These node streams for texturing look pretty intense for new users like me. Is there a way to save some of these to re-use?