Dynamic Scarring along Surface

The picture below is from Star Wars: Jedi Outcast. Does anyone know how to recreate the scar created by him dragging his lightsaber along the wall? Thanks

 

First. That's not a screenshot, that's artwork that was used to promote the game.

Second, while you could leave scars in the wall, they were far less impressive looking than that. Here's what they looked like (taken from this youtube video)


How was it done? Pretty straight forward. They drew a line of geometry wherever the player's lightsaber intersected with the collision geometry. The game came out 18 years ago and the world geometry was super simple, so just drawing straight lines over everything worked pretty well. Overlapping slashes just looked like overlapping lines and did not interact with each other line in the promotional image. They also didn't last very long by default (though you could tweak some settings to make them hang around longer).


Modern takes on the effect would be done exactly the same way, but probably using some kind of deferred decal system so that it can more effectively cut through more complex geometry. I think Force Unleashed 2 probably worked like that.

 

I stand corrected: artwork.

The reason I ask is because I've seen someone do something like this in UE4 and I was wondering if anyone in the Unity community has done something similar I'd like to know if anyone has an idea how it would be done today with something being dragged across a non-smooth surface, like a sphere

 

Same way. Test a short ray against collision. If hit each frame draw a line across the surface using some kind of projected decal.

 

I'll give it a shot; thanks for the help.