Why Decal Machine Is Absolutely INSANE
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- Опубликовано: 26 авг 2024
- The decal workflow is one of the most powerful workflows you can use to enhance your designs, models, and creativity. So why is it so damn powerful?
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I bought Decal Machine super early into my Blender journey, even though I knew I only wanted to use it for game design. It's absolutely a brilliant beast, and worth every penny. It's an amazing bit of add-on.
Agreed, however if you are making 3d models to 3d print you will need to add that detail as geometry. Plugs can give you that convenience, but you need to 3d model that plug or use prebuilt. Then like decals your model start looking the same.
Yes, id use plugs for printing. I don’t do 3D printing myself.
Couldn't you achieve a similar effect with a shape that you use to "cut" the other shape.
Not sure what blender would call it. An intersection of some sort.
Obviously here is about keeping performance.
Good comment though.
Oh I guess I missed the plugs comment , that answers it!
@@ShivaTD420 most 3D software call those Boolean tools. Intersection is one of the options, but then you also have Difference, Union, etc.
@@JoshGambrell Then I guess it really comes down to what the model is for. If the model is intended to be multi-functional, then decals wouldn't cut it. But if it is gonna be used only for render and real-time graphics, then yeah, it seems like a streamlined way of "bump-mapping" for the designer. Though it also doesn't seem universal.
Could maybe do a tutorial on using Decal Machine in game workflow, for example for environment art in UE? I'd be interested to know how sensible it is to use it outside of Blender and together with texturing software like Substance Painter.
Yes the workflow is quite tricky but I could make a tutorial on it. Issue is DM uses custom node groups so you have to work a bit differently for an Unreal Engine workflow.
I haven’t used DM for a long time but you’d also have to bake all the decals to a single atlas for UE as all those material slots are extra draw calls and a waste. Iirc I think DM had the option to bake to an atlas but would have to check.
@@JoshGambrell That is exactly what I would like to learn. Getting Decal Machine into Substance and UE. Please consider making tutorials on these subjects. Thank you.
@@Sisnye You're out of luck with Substance as it doesn't really support parallax, or it does but it does not work well at all. That isn't to say you can't work with a decal sheet but it is just not accurate to preview your height map in there. UE5 on the other hand is just fine, just needs some set up time.
I haven't played with decal machine too much but I assume it can load up a trim sheet, I strongly suggest that people try creating and baking down their own trim sheets for mode deliberate details
I really appreciate your videos and have noticed that they are becoming increasingly engaging. I am looking forward to seeing your progression and growth as an editor, and am excited to see your skills continue to evolve and shine through even more. Keep up the great work!
Thanks, we have an editor who also uses Blender so it’s been an easy transition! We will continue producing our normal tutorials though.
As a member of the vehicle team at CIG we get asked a lot how we work and your description and even using us as an example in a super concise and informative way is excellent. I will defo be sending this video out to people who need guidance. I'm sure a lot of people will find this very useful well done for making a topic that could easily be over an hour in 4 mins
Keep up the amazing work you and everyone else do there.
I hate to be blunt, but this is exactly why I hate the aesthetic of SC.
These techniques make it too easy to add tons of meaningless detail that serves no function.
@@SierraSierraFoxtrot true, but its about good design at the end of the day. this workflow is a tool to create the look you want. anything you make in 3d can be spammed with meaningless detail regardless of how easy it is to do it will just take longer, if you do just spam detail on anything it and ignore design principles it will always look shit. not saying every asset in the game achieves this but we are conscious of it and try to avoid it
@@danmccabe9889 I'm sure you do, but I can't lie, I'm gen-X and I find the entire aesthetic of scifi these days is awful, and I feel a lot of what I see from SC is exactly what I abhor.
Many old games which had a hundred polys per spaceships and texture space of 256x256 had spaceships which have more character and also feel more grounded in or out of the game universe than most of what I see these days.
I just posted a rant about this on twitter (not the first) in which I call this digital fluff "CGI lesions".
This is not meant as a personal attack, obviously tastes differ, but I feel very strongly about this.
@@SierraSierraFoxtrot fair enough if you feel that way and I appreciate you sharing your opinion
When i used to 3d model 20 years ago those were called bump maps. Very useful.
The problem with decals is VR. Nothing is more jarring than seeing a highly detailed brick wall, but then when you look at it from the side, it's flatter than a pancake (at least the pancake has some texture).
Literally said everything I was thinking. It takes FOREVER to make tiny little detailed video game objects.. But when you look at objects in an actual video game they use mid detailed polygon models with a ton of decals
Always been curious about decal machine.
Must say though that anytime I’ve seen modelling BTS for Star Citizen they have utilised trim sheets with parallax mapping very heavily. Never heard them mention decals. Not doubting they do but I would love to see the talk
The most similar I use is to add alphas to sculpt brushes, I think the result is similar and the best of alphas is that it does not create additional geometry, it is just baked into the low poly mesh later. I will check this asset anyway. Thanks
Its not similar at all, the decal resolution is independent of the texel density of the mesh the decal is being applied to. The whole point of this workflow is that its scaleable and works well on very large objects. You would not want to texture a very large object/environment by placing alphas because you'd just be creating dozens of texture sets.
@@AlexTsekot the result is almost the same if you bake the sculpted "alpha brushed" mesh into the final low poly mesh, and this low poly mesh will not have additional geometry, no matter the size
@@gamheroes Again, the floating mesh decals will use their own texture and will always have a consistent texture resolution. Baking these down into a 'lowpoly' mesh goes against the whole point of this workflow. You may as well just stamp the detail in substance painter and not bother with decal machine at all.
@@gamheroes extra geometry in this case isn’t as bad as you think. It’s better than having your textures at 4k just so that alpha shows up crisp…and then do that for every object ? Decals are the standard
@@IGarrettI yeah man heavy textures could be worse for RAM than extra geometry, but as almost always...It depends on the project! My current one uses 1080p textures and the weight of them is littles kbs so baking is great
I think a better more recent example is Cyberpunk 2077. Say what you want about the actual game but they made some really nice work using decals/trims not only on environments but on the guns and vehicles too. The guns in particular are midpoly with decals compared to most other games where the guns are uniquely baked from a highpoly mesh. What they lost in uniqueness I'm sure more than made up for in the variety and speed of creation, that's sort of the whole point of using decals and tiling materials. They didn't end up using parallax occlusion (at least last I looked) but the mix of materials and decals make some of the relatively lowpoly vehicles look pretty good so I would encourage anyone interested to take a look at the game files as they can be easily accessed using Wolvenkit.
I'd say that what is lost in uniqueness can result in a gain of cohesive design language, in addition to the points you made about quick iteration and ease of variant creation. In Star Citizen's case, for example, you can get in a ship you've never seen before, and pretty much know who the ingame manufacturer is. At times, you can tell just from a teaser photo of a wall panel. Take a walk through your house and look at things like outlet covers, HVAC vents, etc. They likely all match (non-unique). Your neighbor's probably do too. That's because 'greebles' in the real world are mass-produced. Treating digital greebles as reusable commodities as if they were purchased in bulk simplifies the scale and scope of work required. Define the stuff that will be needed (screw heads, panel lines, etc.) for all assets, then make a variant of each greeble for the different manufacturers. bonus points if you can atlas it all on one 2k texture set per shipbuilder, and rebuild it in the shader.
Do a video on how to export decals to unreal. It would be very helpful!
Sure thing!
@@JoshGambrell Indeed Josh it would be awesome if you focused on the work flow between blender and Unreal 5 with how to use these decals. Because Unity has shot themselves in the foot and Unreal is better for 3D anyway.
@@JoshGambrellalso how to set them up in unreal because i find decal machines documentation rather hard to understand
If I'm not mistaken, those decals have parallax support with which you can control the depth, like, *_actual_* depth effect.... except, it's on a _plane_ , right ?
That trick is insane.
Yea it has a custom node group in Blender for Parallax Mapping.
@@JoshGambrell I think you would have a big audience for explaining workflows into game engines.
Thanks guys Sharing!!!!Dud Crazy!!!!
This man has a very soothing voice. Very informative video too.
Excellent tips and tricks for 3D modeling.
So is this just a fancy way to apply individual normal maps as decals?
That's what kept running through my head this entire video: Looks like normal / displacement maps using blender geometry nodes. But I haven't looked at "Decal Machine" at all, so I guess take it with a grain of salt?
Using this method also cuts down on the vertices a model has. Adding the actual detail into the shape creates exponentially more verts, which is more to load for the hardware, so games run more efficiently using decals instead.
I find that Decal Machine is great no matter the polycount or texture resolution, coming from the Source Engine and its info_overlay entities.
As soon as I saw that weird shape you created before and after I immediately thought of bump mapping.
Thank you greatly for this amazing info!
They definitely must be a savior for modelers, and a savior for gamers too for reducing the poly count and enhancing performance crazily. Though, because I love looking at the details so much in games, finding decals on complex objects can be a bit disappointing 😅
I was doing this thing in unreal engine i didn't knew about this blender addon thank you so much
Is it possible to bake these decals and trim sheets unto the mesh? What is the decal machine to adobe substance painter workflow.
I'm really confused here😢
I love the new style of the videos, I was going to say it in the previous video but I didn't know if the new style was going to stay.
Thanks a bunch, big ups to our current video editor for the hard work!
I wish 3D Studio's Max has something similar. I do MS Flight Sim models and do the rivets and panel lines using decals and its a huge time sink.
Decal machine is one of my best purchase from Blender market as I am a Sci-fi enthusiast.
I knew you were gonna reference star citizen because it looked straight out of the game
I wonder how well this technique translates to VR content.
This is why all space sci-fi environments look the same in every game 🙃
could you maybe explain, how I export them ? all videos about them I see are only inside Blender. What what's in the case, that I wanna create my Texture in Substance Painter ? How can I use especially trim sheets from Decal Machine in Substance Painter ?
wow, its an interesting instrument, but I think I want to learn how to do it myself first
Awesome video :]
Decal machine is a very powerful tool. Would be nice to see an overview of best decal packages 👍 Bought all Blender Bros packages, but I need mooooooore :)))))
We can't keep up haha. Got some plans for 2023 but course creation will be slowing down with a focus on more valuable content :)
@@JoshGambrell yes, please do more 💪🏻 and trim sheets too 🤟🏻
I like the new editing style
you had me when i suddenly saw the RSI Constellation
I would love to see an addon something similar to this that would be usable for things like cottage windows / cloth details - even faces?
I just got Decal machine but not sure how to export the models and decals to substance... Any tutorials on that?
What happened to the missing panel in your painting?
I'm running into issues with decalmachine, specifically it needs PIL and when i click on instal it doesn't do anything
"i´m not gonna sit here and bore you with my commentary.." Me: "NOOO!!!!" "..well..yes i am.." ME: "YESS!!" 😁
Do I correctly see shadows/highlights changing on decals (are they able to do that)?
This is awesome
It is possible to bake the decals, including the more complex ones, along with the main base model, as to be game engine usable?
Isn't this the same as bringing an image into substance and then adjusting the height on it?
Man I hope you're not planning to go all weird like Arrimus 3D did, your channel right now is the best one going for straight modeling
We will be doing a combo of both.
@@JoshGambrell I think he is referring to the fact that Arrimus3d started uploading irrelevant to 3D videos along with the usual tutorials ( like religion topics etc).
@@JoshGambrell arrimus went insane, deleted all his content and only uploads religions junk now
I might get back into decal machine question tho have you tried using it with texturing addons such as pbr painter?
Something i wonder, does Decal machine also contain decals more oriented towards medieval/fantasy stuff?
Not specifically, maybe someone has created their own pack for this.
Is it somehow possible to use your decal packs in substance painter as well as blender?
Why am I watching this, I've never modeled a single thing in my life before lol
aw yea!
Your comment has “translate to English” and it actually translates to “Oh, yeah!”
Now I know more
Thanks Josh, informative as usual!
... so basically just normal maps without having to unwrap the complex shape and risk stretching, right?
what do you guys think about achieving this effect in Zbrush? are alphas as good or am I better jumping into Blender to get this effect?
@Jelly **uncertainty thickens**
This looks a lot like the Star Wars ships especially the Mon Cal ones (like the one from the opening from SW IV and the ending of Rogue One)
Can you use the blender addon for a commercial game (asking just in case)
I thought this was a video about the let it die decal machine xD
I have so many questions..
Im currently in a project, where Im not allowed to use paid software so I cant get Decal Machine.
What are the "floating Decals"? Are they just images with an alpha channel? What if I change the material of the object tho? Is there geometry notes for shading involved? How do I put Images on a model seperatly from Textures? Can you make the decals yourself? What resolution should those immages then at least have?
This doesn't change the final output of the 3D print, does it? It's just a texture.
Is there a similar add-on for maya?
Can I install Decal Machine on my two computers?
Amazing Video Bro, Quick question. Can you use this in addition with Substance Painter? Like Create the mesh , use the tool and then export it to substance to texture with these decals in place?
Hey, I assume all should be well as long as you bake all of the maps right? Then it should act as a regular texture.
something that we need is a 3D printer + I.A on it, that would be incredible
What would that process be in Maya?
Looks to me like a very old method called bump mapping
I do hardsurface in blender all the time. I do it primarily for game dev. How do you impliment decalmachine? They arnt very game engine friendly unless they are cut using trim sheets.
Is this just a fast way to generate normal/bump maps?
An important question I have about Decal machine, does the add-on have a fast way to make the decals part of the normal map of the object? For exporting and stuff, or can it be done fast and easy with or without the add-on?
There’s a few workflows of which I’d need to create a separate tutorial.
The whole point of decals is that the resolution of the decal is separate from the object its being applied to, its counter intuitive to want to bake these down onto your object imo as you would lose a lot of information if you don't have enough texture resolution.
@@AlexTsekot But that's how it is for game use for example
@@velstorios9473 For 'some' games yes, there are a number of games that use decals like they are shown here.
I mean, this is a just a one step texture-map/bump-map, right? The tools seem newer but I'm pretty sure this is how they were detailing game assets twenty years ago.
Holy shit, I just realised that Doom 3 is almost 20 years old... Hello existential crisis! lol
@@targard.quantumfrack6854 Yeah in particular I was thinking of Deus Ex Invisible War, because that's the first game I remember with notable bump mapping.
basic texturing and using normals is called stamping now?
New words? I thought in the modeling world it was: solids, wireframe, surfaces, radii, splines, curves, meshing, holes etc…..
with the advance virtualized geometry(unreal's nanite) the use of decals and other types of "fake geometry" tricks are gonna decrease in games.
is not just that you can get the same effect with actual geometry, but currently you are limited with how much you can do shader wise with virtualized geometry since the shader hardware is busy making it work.
so you saving it for lighting materials. which is not so bad since you can get have infinite amount of detailing, but it has to be actual geometry
I mean, all i'm seeing is a plugin that adds things to your normalmap and diffuse texture. You could at any point just save the diffuse/normalmap of your model and photoshop all these little details from there as well.
Still, sweet plugin.
Except there is no diffuse and normal map on the model, and it doesn't even have UVs. Workflow matters.
@@MACHIN3 yes but there is no way you would actually use this in a production
@@filthygarbage Studios all over the world use DECALmachine in production.
Wow
Oh yes you are 😅.
Thanks for the video man.
I Love Insane stuff 👁️👁️👃👁️👁️ 🙏
Surely it is just a normalmap. You can do this in substance painter or 3ds Max just as easy.
So, with those decals, Do you use them on your high poly models, then bake them on your low poly model ? Or can you keep those flying geometry and use them on your lowpoly model ?
Who knows
You can use them as floaters.
Decal or " Textures " as us old folks call it. Changing " Panel " we old folks called it " Texture Limit on faces " so you only put the sticker/jpg/gif on part of the model on specific faces, at specific scales. and yea, there are other options that can actually add the textures, extrude the difference ( from visual to actual detailed model ) and farther to an actual .obj file that can be made printable.
I believe decaling is the "trick" that Star Citizen uses to have a whole solar system rendered without insane textures and modeling. Clever 2D trickery to make a really good looking 3D game.
It's what most games have used for well over a decade
@@torf1746 okay well I'm just talking about Star Citizen
Also it's not what all games use across the board, by any means.
Or they just texture some spheres which would allow more accurate applications such as overlap
This guy just discovered bump maps
I do it in Zbrush all the high poly stuff micro detail stuff and then I bake the normal map information in SP...!!!!
yeah, about starcitizen. No. They are not. Most of the details are actually modelled. On the ship atleast. I know that, beacuse ive recreated M50 Origin and Avenger, had to spent some time learning the topology. Interiors are full of geometry. The details are only used in places where setting geometry would brake texel density for the texture, so it is easier to stamp bigger decal there. They are not going on shortcuts when designing these ships. Thats why they are so expensive.
I am certain they are because I’ve checked with Starfab. They have entire, unique trim sheets and decals dedicated to just a single ship to elevate the detail. A TON of their model detail comes from trims and stamps.
Definte 'most details'? Star Citizen ships are basically a vehicle+environment hybrid. They range from really small to extremely large , entire levels worth of flying ship so they need a consistent way to add details. Screws, bolts, panel lines, small switches etc. A lot of the underlying geometry is modeled sure but they also liberally use decals, a few of the smaller ships I have seen that a work colleague of mine that used to work at CIG showed me used well over 20-30k triangles worth of just decals alone, and these are just the smaller ships.
@@AlexTsekot i did answer that, but my comment got deleted, so i wont bother again. But yes, i meant simmiliar thing as you have stated. Ive told that there is a lot of geometry, and a lot of decals. And that the models are really geometricaly sophisticated, decals are there just to elevate it even further, and not be a goto shortcut
new format? 😀
hm. if it creates the same exact same illusion how would we be able to notice next time we are playing a game?
jsut for Info, you have a little too much bass in your mic, or pop.
Al de models you make with decal machine are they printable on a 3d printer ?
No they aren’t
@@JoshGambrell ah Oke so it's back to trying to figure that out. Thanks for replying!
It's not insane, it's rather finally getting closer to what an artists tool should be.
3D graphics has always been a right pain in the @$$, requiring you to combine patience and analytical capability of a computer scientist, APM of a Starcraft player, and artistic spontaneity of a painter... and a range of super-high-tech, finnicky tools absolutely guaranteed to get in your way.
About bloody time that started to change.
Talks about performance, mentions star citizen LOL
So you can bake the details to a normal map? Show us how!
Hello, I have a monthly subscription on your site and I would like to stop it, how should I do it please? Thanks
As someone who has been working on big models for games, usually these devs require two types of models or even just one, this is the same thing for star citizen, usually designers make a high poly model where almost nothing is decal, everything is poly, these are usually used for renders like splash arts or wallpapers or rendered trailers where player performance takes no place, the final gameplay model dev will then proceed or reusing the high poly model and baking it into a functional low poly model or more acceptable for the performance, resulting these details being baked into a normal map texture which will give an illusion of being modeled, you may use these kind of decals aswell, baking with these decals will also result in a normal map texture that may be then reused in game it self. Usually the dev will make multiple lods of the model based on how far the player is, the closest the player to the model the more polygons it will have, pretty much every game uses lods, premade versions of one model from the most details to the lowest.
It reminds me of box cutter or cookie cutter tools
So.. can we see the effect in a 3d model all ready print it?🧐
No, you could use plugs with Mesh Machine instead tho
isn't that the same as substance painter ? Maybe there's something i don't get.
So , If I could export all of this into G-Code, then I can profile machine on my 5 axis mill !!!! Searching!
i know, i just like modeling everything because i hate myself
Damn did you get an video editor recently Josh? Lookin good.
We've had him for a while but he's been changing up the edits here!
Also...you know... bump maps...