Easy Decal - Decals everywhere

Good call on lighting. I am using realtime light sources with precomputed GI. I had already completed precompute before I started adding the decals. Once I deleted the GI cache and then combined atlases, the decals look the same (before and after the combine). However after I run the precompute again, my white decals turn black. I'm not sure if its because I'm on a shadowed side of the building? But even then, I want my white to stay white. I'm going to do some more investigating but wanted to give you an update!

 

Even when the decals are placed in shaded places, they should not become completely black.



Thank you for the update!

 

Combined atlases still appear to turn black after I run a Precompute GI -regardless of whether in direct light or shadow.

I did end up using a .25 resolution on my Precompute GI. Also using a transparent PSD file for the texture.

 

Hi, a new user here...

We just downloaded 1.6.2 and imported the package in an empty project - Unity 5.4.1f1

I directly loaded the scene_demo and dragged a decal prefab from the
"nu Assets/Easy Decal/Prefabs/Dirt/" folder. I used the Decal Dirt A prefab.

When I put the gameobject on the ground I did not see the decal at all, however, I saw the box and the projection plane.

If I go under the terrain with the camera I see the decal displayed on the other side (below the terrain). I did not do anything else (clicked or set) except the things I described here. And there is no way that I can see the decal on top of the ground mesh(Terrain). Same goes for all prefabs with source mode Material. If I drag a graffiti prefab it gets displayed without a problem. If I use a decal prefab which uses an atlas it works fine. I'm I doing something wrong?

I tried this also with 1.6.1+patch2 and 1.6.0... always the same result: some decals (prefabs already included) cannot be shown on front faces (only on backfaces).

I tried to import the package in our current porject and we get all the atlases included corrupted. Are we doing something wrong again?

Thank you for your response.
Simon.

 

Are the normal well aligned when you enabling the normal rendering in the Extras tab?

Actually it should upgrade without problems as the atlas structure wasn't changed. What exactly did break: The link from Easy Decal component to the atlas asset or the atlas asset itself?

 

Have enabled the Use Light Probes option?



Have you already upgraded to version 1.6.2? The new version automatically reunwrapps the decal's geometry for Enlighten this helps avoiding baking artifacts.

 

You are welcome!
Keep us up to date with your project.

 

Here are some screenshots:





The images above are default... straight from the package





The second two images are with normals.. the flip normal otion also does nothing.

And this is how the imported atlas looks like:



Check the error in the cosole too.

Any ideas?

I just noticed that the shader used in the prefab above is Particles/Multiply (Double)

 

I have a second question. How is Easy Decal supposed to be used with Unity Terrain? With higher Pixel Error values and lower LOD the box projection decal gets clipped on rough surfaces. Having the decal Distance higher than 0.01 it is not logic. Any suggestions?

 

@SimonsCat We could successfully reproduce the first issue (decals not visible using one of the built-in Unity particle shaders). It seems that this is some kind of Unity issue. The decals using one of these shaders are not visible in the perspective rendering mode.

Orthographic



Perspective



Please download the attached shader package as a replacement for the shaders currently used on said decals. They will also be included in the next update/patch.

 

Unfortunately, this is a know problem when using mesh decals (on Unity terrains) as it's not possible to detect what region of the terrain did change its LOD. The current terrain implementation doesn't allow to grab the LOD geometry data in the component abstraction level.

One possible (hacky) workaround I could think of would be to implement a specialized decal shader which pushes the vertices along their normals based on the actual LOD.

The other solution is to switch to screen space/deferred decals. They are completely independent of the actual geometry.

 

Hey @nu-assets how performant is this solution with runtime decals? Say I shoot at a car and it leaves several bullet holes on the bonnet. The car then starts to drive away. How performant would this be? Or is it generally good to avoid runtime movement with this solution?

 

The decal system will just consume notable amount of CPU time in the frame the decal gets instantiated, as the decals get immediately baked after the projecting when using the API to instantiate. Once a decal is baked, it just have a little overhead for the lifetime and fade out logic.

So in your case you would use the following method to instantiate and parent the decal to the hit object (your car):

Code (CSharp):

1. EasyDecal.ProjectAt(GameObject decalPrefab, GameObject receiver, Vector3 position, Vector3 normal)

where decalPrefab is your premade decal prfeab, receiver is the hit object (your car), position is tthe actual hit position and normal is the interpolated surface normal at the impact point.

I hope this answers your question.

 

Cool. So it automatically parents it to the object. Pretty good solution. Will hopefully pick this up in the near future.

 

Yes. They get automatically parented and baked within the parent's local space.

Thank you

 

Hello ) I download 1.6.2 version from site, Easy_Decal_Doc.pdf in package – version 1.6.0. Online version pdf from site - 1.6.2. In the AssetStore and will be the old version?

 

We use SteamVR, many environment assets comes with mesh decals, these do not work very well in VR/3D. If placed closed to the surface they should "stick" to they clip and flicker at a distance, and if placed so they do not flicker at a distance they appear to float in mid air when getting close because of Stereoscopic 3D.

If i replace our mesh decals with this system will we see not only this problem go away but a performance boost as well?

We use Unity 5.4.1 with SteamVR and single pass render

 

Thank you for getting in touch.

The flickering could be a result of non-optimal shader setup (z-fighting). We heavily use Easy Decal in one of our current projects with Oculus Rift and never encountered the effects that you describe.

The flickering issue will be gone with Easy Decal (at least when using the included shaders). But it's hard to tell if your project will benefit from it performance-wise.

 

Thank your for contacting.

Yesterday, the UAS version has been updated to 1.6.2. You can always view the newest docs here, for the case that the UAS version has a slightly out dated documentation included.

 

You are always on a budget with VR since dips below 90 FPS will be noticed directly. But you say your system does not put more strain atleast?

 

All the shaders are based on the Unity Standard pipeline, so there will be no difference here (when comparing static decals).

 

@LunaTrap
Internally the system uses a top-down projection approach. But you can switch the transform handles from local to global.

 

@nu-assets

Thanks, i deleted the question because i think is not as important, but this one it is.

Im spawning decals on runtime, i know how to do it, im using Pathological PoolManager, i tried the way you described of passing the instatiation process to the pool manager, but it gave me error, but for now, i wont post anything about it until i find out if the error is on my side or not, so im using standar pool manager Spawn() method, for now, the more important question is.

I want my decals to remain in the level for ever until the player goes to the next level, but right now when i spawn the declas, my performance goes to the ground, is there anything i need to do to "bake" the decals so they stop raycasting and such?

 

It seems that reply and post removal overlapped.

You could change the code like this:

Code (CSharp):

1.         EasyDecal clone = PoolManager.Pools[PoolName].Spawn(decalPrefab, position, rotation).GetComponent<EasyDecal>();
2.         clone.Reset(true);
3.         clone.LateBake();// Bake the decal after one projection cycle

This will bake the decal in the next frame. Please let me know if everything is working as expected now.

 

I figured out what was wrong with passing the instantiation process to the PoolManager, but now i use the EasyDecals.ProjectAt() method and the projection direction is all wrong, why is it using the forward vector?

im using the standar method i doing raycast and then set the rotation to the hit.normal

Code (CSharp):

1.         Vector3 newRayPosition = transform.position + transform.forward * range;
2.         Ray scatterRay = new Ray(transform.position, newRayPosition - transform.position);
3.         RaycastHit scatterRayHit;
4.         if (Physics.Raycast(scatterRay, out scatterRayHit, range, solidsLayer))
5.         {
6.             Quaternion decalRotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(scatterRayHit.normal);
7.             EasyDecal.ProjectAt(spatterDecalPrefab, scatterRayHit.transform.gameObject, scatterRayHit.point, decalRotation);
8.         }

Also, is there anyway i make the decal not change its scale? the only way it keeps its original scale is if i project in the direction of the hit.normal, but if i use the direction of the ray, the scale gets all messed up.



For clarification, im creating a bullet exit wound, so i raycast multiple times againts solid objects, in this image is againts the wall

 

Internally the system uses a top-down projection approach. The projection process takes place in the local space of the decal.

If you want to avoid projective distortion, you have to us the surface normal. Think of a paint ball hitting the floor/wall in a flat angle: the paint splash will be distorted/scaled along the shooting ray. The same applies to the decal.

You could rewrite your instantiation code to something like the following:

Code (CSharp):

1. Quaternion decalRotation  = Quaternion.AngleAxis(rotation, scatterRayHit.normal) * Quaternion.FromToRotation(Vector3.up, scatterRayHit.normal);

Where the rotation variable specifies the rotation in degress around the impact normal. The rotation could also be randomized.

 

I see, i did not know it had distortion, i was using my onw logic to project different decals depending on the angle of the ray vector and the hit.normal, so diagonal blood spatter will appear and in a right angle drops instead of spatters.

i will try that code snippet, but i dont understand, i did a very simple test, so nothing im doing will come in play, what is the point of the ProjectAt method when is required to do that code snippet? what im doing wrong?

Code (CSharp):

1.         Ray testRay = new Ray(transform.position, transform.forward);
2.         RaycastHit testRayHit;
3.         if(Physics.Raycast(testRay, out testRayHit, 100f, solidsLayer))
4.         {
5.             EasyDecal test = EasyDecal.ProjectAt(spatterDecalPrefabs[Random.Range(0, spatterDecalPrefabs.Length)], testRayHit.transform.gameObject, testRayHit.point, Quaternion.LookRotation(testRayHit.normal));
6.             Debug.DrawRay(transform.position, testRayHit.point - transform.position, Color.blue, 3f);
7.         }

The ray is being send form the player, and is only 1 raycast

 

Sometimes it's useful and appropriate to make compromises between real world behaviour and the game world.

The posted snippet does basically the same as the

Code (CSharp):

1. EasyDecal ProjectAt(GameObject decalPrefab, GameObject receiver, Vector3 position, Vector3 normal, float rotation)

overloading from the API. I thought you wanted to roll your own instantiation code.

 

One thing i dont understand, is i though the projection method would do the same as using crtl + alt + LMB in the editor does, i guessing you are using raycast with the camera to positioning the decal when doing the smart placement.

Or atleast have the distortion be optional, nevermind, i think i will stop using the projection method and go back to the pool manager spawning.

The last code snippet, i fixed it with changing the rotation parameter on the ProjectAt method

Code (CSharp):

1. Quaternion.LookRotation(testRayHit.normal)

to just passing the

Code (CSharp):

1. testRayHit.normal

.
I dont understand why doing Quaternion.LookRotation(testRayHit.normal) did not worked.

 

That's exactly how the Smart Placement system works. But it actually uses the hit point normal to calculate the orientation and not the ray itself.

There's a missing axis in your expression. You have to calculate the orientation in a completely defined subspace. Like in the snippet posted above (and below ).

Code (CSharp):

1. Quaternion decalRotation  = Quaternion.AngleAxis(rotation, scatterRayHit.normal) * Quaternion.FromToRotation(Vector3.up, scatterRayHit.normal);

 

Hi is there a way to ignore objects or layers when using SSD

 

Layers can not easily be used for masking purposes when using SSD/DSSD. At least not with a one-camera setup.
But what you can do is some fake-layering by offsetting the draw order in the shader:

Code (CSharp):

1.         Tags
2.         {
3.             "RenderType"="Opaque"
4.             "Queue" = "Transparent+x"
5.         }

But unfortunately this will lead to artifacts and sorting issues.

 

i'll give it ago, it's only for a public opening of a prototype tomorrow so it only needs to be rough.

basically for the project we have a map overlay of a town showing all the buildings, kinda like gooogle maps at higher resolution which is divided into multiple sections and needs to be projected onto the terrain.
it's a real town so a lot of images for high quality and SSD works perfectly except from it projecting on buildings

Thanks

 

Sounds interesting. Would be great if you could post a screenshot of your use case!

 

absolutely, one question im not a shader expert, and Im getting an error when I change the tags

 

I'm sorry. Forgot to mention that x (integer) is the actual render queue offset.

For instance:

Code (CSharp):

1.         Tags
2.         {
3.             "RenderType"="Opaque"
4.             "Queue" = "Transparent+20"
5.         }

 

doesn't seem to like me, i'll have another try tomorrow, at the moment all i can get is water showing on top

 

That was a typo. Actually the offset should be x = 20 (or > 10), as the DSS decal queue is Transparent + 10. Just changed that in the post above.

Here's a simple example just for completeness.

For receiving decals (render below them) use the Standard shader or - for the case you're using a custom one - implement it like the following:

Code (CSharp):

1. Shader "Easy Decal/Render Below DSSD (Metallic)"
2. {
3.     Properties
4.     {
5.         _Color ("Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
6.         _MainTex ("Albedo (RGB)", 2D) = "white" {}
7.         _Glossiness ("Smoothness", Range(0,1)) = 0.5
8.         _Metallic ("Metallic", Range(0,1)) = 0.0
9.     }
10.  
11.     SubShader
12.     {
13.         Tags
14.         {
15.             "RenderType"="Opaque"
16.             "Queue" = "Geometry"// Standard for opaque object -> render index 2000
17.         }
18.         LOD 200
19.      
20.         CGPROGRAM
21.  
22.         #pragma surface surf Standard fullforwardshadows
23.         #pragma target 3.0
24.  
25.         struct Input
26.         {
27.             float2 uv_MainTex;
28.         };
29.  
30.         sampler2D _MainTex;
31.  
32.         half _Glossiness;
33.         half _Metallic;
34.         fixed4 _Color;
35.  
36.         void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutputStandard o)
37.         {
38.             fixed4 c = tex2D (_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex) * _Color;
39.             o.Albedo = c.rgb;
40.             o.Metallic = _Metallic;
41.             o.Smoothness = _Glossiness;
42.             o.Alpha = c.a;
43.         }
44.         ENDCG
45.     }
46.     FallBack "Diffuse"
47. }
48.  

To render an object above the DSS decal use a shader as the following:

Code (CSharp):

1. Shader "Easy Decal/Render Above DSSD (Metallic)"
2. {
3.     Properties
4.     {
5.         _Color ("Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
6.         _MainTex ("Albedo (RGB)", 2D) = "white" {}
7.         _Glossiness ("Smoothness", Range(0,1)) = 0.5
8.         _Metallic ("Metallic", Range(0,1)) = 0.0
9.     }
10.  
11.     SubShader
12.     {
13.         Tags
14.         {
15.             "RenderType"="Opaque"
16.             "Queue" = "Transparent+20" // Render index 3000 + 20
17.         }
18.         LOD 200
19.      
20.         CGPROGRAM
21.  
22.         #pragma surface surf Standard fullforwardshadows
23.         #pragma target 3.0
24.  
25.         struct Input
26.         {
27.             float2 uv_MainTex;
28.         };
29.  
30.         sampler2D _MainTex;
31.  
32.         half _Glossiness;
33.         half _Metallic;
34.         fixed4 _Color;
35.  
36.         void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutputStandard o)
37.         {
38.             fixed4 c = tex2D (_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex) * _Color;
39.             o.Albedo = c.rgb;
40.             o.Metallic = _Metallic;
41.             o.Smoothness = _Glossiness;
42.             o.Alpha = c.a;
43.         }
44.         ENDCG
45.     }
46.     FallBack "Diffuse"
47. }
48.  

Using these shader in conjunction with the included DSSD shader, the output should look like the image below.

 

Hi, its me again, got all my last problems solved thanks to you, but now im worried, is it normal for the decal to make so much GC when it spawns? its 12ms, thats almost all the cpu time avaliable, i know when its get baked, this stops and it only happens for 1 frame.

Is this the expected performance? its only 1 decal and having this everytime a bullet hits a wall will kill the fps.

 

Unfortunately yes. This is the drawback of mesh decals. They consume a lot of CPU time at their birth, but nearly nothing during their life. Deferred and screen space decals continuously consume a small amount of CPU time (about 0.02ms - 0.06ms). Performance will be increased with the upcoming native projection and load distribution.

The performance also depends on the use case and the projector technique.

Plane
The plane projector uses raycasts to project a plane mesh with a predefined resolution onto a receiver. The plane technique should be used for simple surfaces.

Performance affected by:

• Resolution property

Box
The box projector cuts out all geometry intersecting the specified bounding box. The box technique should be used for complex surfaces.

Performance affected by:

• World space size of decal
• Geometry complexity of receiver

Deferred
The deferred decal projector renders the decal in screen space. The different texture maps get written to the respective g-buffer just before the lighting pass.

Performance affected by:

• Screen space size of decal

Screen Space
This projector renders the decal in screen space. Currently, only a multiply blending mode is available.

Performance affected by:

• Screen space size of decal

 

Im us

Im using the plane method, is there any tips you can give me for the bullet decals? I noticed that having a fps drop for 1 frame is very hard to notice, 1 frame happens too quick to be noticeable to the human eye, Im correct in thinking this?
BTW your decal system is awesome and im very happy i bought it, 5 stars

 

The plane method is sufficient for medium-complex and convex surfaces (walls, floors, ceilings, round columns, etc). But in the average case the box or DSS method may give better results. The box projector offers a bit of a better performance with a small scales and medium-complex receivers.

The advantage of the deferred decals is that they perform always the same no matter how complex the actual scene/geometry is.

Thank you!

 

Hello- I recently purchased this asset and was testing it out- I'm using the newest version on the asset store- all the windows in the Decal manager are blacked out like this- is it supposed to be like this as its impossible to read-

Tried it on Unity 5.3.x and 5.4.x stays like this-

 

Thank you for reporting. We forgot to change the texture type on some of the background graphics. That's because they become very dark when working in linear color space.

To fix this just change the Texture Type property to Editor GUI and Legacy GUI (at least) on following textures:

• Editor Default Resources/nu Assets/Shared/UI/Background/box
• Editor Default Resources/nu Assets/Shared/UI/Background/box_active

The blackout should now be gone.

 

Thank you- I'm now able to see the text- there also seems to be a problem with the icons as none of them are showing up- it seems there is a white box on top of the icon as you can see the edge of the icon beneath the box on the left side- any ideas? Thanks

 

That seems to be a caused by the Unity Personal Theme. This issue will be fixed in the Patch 2 for version 1.6.2. The patch will be soon downloadable from our website.

 

@mdotstrange Patch is up and alive. Just make an account and link your order number.

 

Thank you- awesome support

 

You are very welcome!