Question URP Decal Layers?

Being able to exclude meshes from being affected by decals is very important, especially if the targeted decal surface isn't flat. Is there a way to do that currently in URP and if not, is it a planned feature?

Example below: is it possible to project a decal ONLY onto the terrain?

 

HDRP have it, but I don't know if they will implement it also inside the URP. Obviously it's a must have feature...

 

Agreed and +1. This is a must have feature indeed.

 

It's a complex issue to solve, for HDRP they had to resort to reusing the first 4 light layers iirc.

I agree it's important, but I wouldn't expect this to be implemented over night

Haven't tried this myself, but it may be possible to use the Render Objects render feature to render a specific layer on top of all the decals.

 

Do URP decals really not have a way to filter which objects receive decals? Seriously? Who thought that would be a good idea? It's not a very useful system if it doesn't have this feature. If you were designing a decal system, and thinking of what features it should have, it would say "filter which surfaces it can project on" would be on top of the list.

 

Thanks for update Leonhard!

Can we have an entry for Decal Layers on the URP roadmap

https://portal.productboard.com/uni...sual-effects/tabs/3-universal-render-pipeline

To give us some confidence? Outside of small decals ie blood splats and bullet holes I am not sure what more you could do with this?

I was imagining using for drop/blob shadows, large painted decals on grounds (road symbols etc) or on walls (spray paint/graffiti). These use cases are not possible at all without some way to filter?

Ofcourse this release is better than nothing - it is nice to get an early preview of how the system will work. I would love to see something on the road map about this!

Edit: can we opt out of receiving decals for meshes? Our hero characters renderers can opt out of them and we could get by for now without Layers. I should download and give it a try

 

Request submitted..

I tried your suggestion and it is indeed possible. So we've got a workaround for now.

Spoiler: Setup

It was nice to be able to do this without any scripting! Now if only we could filter what is rendered by Rendering Layers and not standard Layers...

 

Any update on the progress for this @LeonhardP?

 

With the decal renderer technique of 'DBuffer' (or 'Automatic'), I wasn't able to get this to work unless I also set the new RenderObjects feature's event to 'AfterRenderingPrePasses'. If I used a technique of 'Screen Space', then I could set the feature's event to 'AfterRenderingSkyBox'.

 

I found a much simpler work around for this.
If you only want the decals to appear on the floor geometry, but ignore all the geometry above the floor (architecture and characters), all you have to do is change the render queue of the materials.
The render queue determines when the material is going to be drawn by the GPU.
So, say your decal material has a queue of 1800. Every material with a queue below that value will be rendered before. So the decals will show on top of those materials. So, you put everything you want to be affected by decals (all your floor and floor details) with materials with a queue lower than 1800.
Then, everything with a material who's render queue is above that value (1802, 1803, etc.) will render on top, and so it'll ignore the decals. So, you put your characters, furniture, arquitecture, etc. with a highter queue than 1800.
You can set the render queue of any material in the inspector. If you don't see it, you may have to the upper right corner of the inspector, click on the three dots and choose "Debug". Then it'll show, and you can later switch back to normal.

 

Wouldn't changing the rendering order mess up the optimizations that GPU's have when rendering front to back? With front to back, if a fragment would not be visible because something is already rendered in front of it, the GPU can discard it. By doing it the opposite way, you no longer have that optimization. Whether that way is faster than whatever decal layer method Unity is implementing is something that will have to be seen.

 

killer feature to use decal for rpg/rts-style worldspace GUI, which affect decoration, but not gamplay-active gameObjects

 

Any progress on this ?

 

Any progress on this ?

 

But really,
Any progress on this ?

 

Is there a workaround for this issue until that feature is implemented? Because in most situations you wouldn't want a decal to affect dynamic objects, only static ones like walls and so on.

 

Searching for a solution I found this: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/pull/6442

The pull requests apparently contains Decal Layers for URP and has been done since the 1st of December, and it's now just waiting for someone to apply certain revision.

 

Thanks! This setup is indeed a nice workaround. I had to set the decal technique to 'screen space' to get it to work, but it does the job.

 

Are there any plans for the LTS to get support for this?

 

Are there any less-optimal implementation suggestions for folks working with 2021 LTS atm? The official solution isn't going to be compatible, but sticking decals onto flat surfaces with thin projectors has always been a severe limitation of their use etc.

The Lux URP package has decal shaders that can be adjusted with the stencil buffer, but an official solution with layers was really anticipated after the absence of an official decal solution in LWRP/URP for years since their release.

 

I attempted the workaround above (Render Objects - see Prodigga's post above); however, I had this strange effect of the decal correctly being projected onto the terrain; however, it was still visible in front of objects on top of it:




I then changed my render object (ignore decal layer) to : "AfterRenderingPrepasses" and this seems to work:




However, as I will be putting almost all objects (characters, enemies, probs) into this layer, I'm worried about other side effects.


Anyone know when this will be supported properly in the URP?

 

Thanks <3

 

Thank for this. I update for decal only "Ground" layer

 

Why did you bring to us this very basic feature for any modern engine in 2022 without even layer-based filters? Do you at least imagine by the way that layers is not only required option for us? We also need object-based filter. For example to render blood splats only on specific character(that was hit by the bullet, sword etc.).
So what the hell with you, Unity?

 

Also how do we should fix "floating" blood decals on our skinned mesh renderers? When skin of character stretch decals should stretch with it and shrink too, but now it just like float above it. Why you NEVER notice such basic cases while implementing your features?

 

URP decals seem to have some aliasing issues...This is in URP 14 with or without decal layers.


EDIT- I played around with what could be causing this and determined that it happens only when the decal texture has mipmapping enabled.

 

Any news in this? I am using unity 2021, and I need layers on decals on URP

 

Unity 2022 version of URP has render layers.

 

note they forgot to add _lightLayerMask inside ForwardLights.cs
this was only added by unity after 2022.2.4 api 14.0.5 and higher

 

Good but I need it in 2021.3.16f1 or up. I don't want my project broke

 

Another unity fail. Another half baked feature.

 

It's not that bad with the render layers. Way better than the asset store options for decals for the built-in render pipeline, which never worked all that well. Only thing I see missing is an Unlit Decal option.

 

Here is another example of the fringing caused by the decal rendering layers. I submitted a bug report but haven't gotten a case number yet.

 

hey howeru did you know about sprite rendering on a mesh for a blood effet (2d) on a box or floor or wall u know and cloths of who get shoot to drop blood its voxely topdown game i suppose can you help with that i cant find any way to mask sprte work with meshes

 

Hi! I'm having an issue related to this. Decal layering works just fine on the editor, but not on Android build on Oculus Quest 2. PC build seems to work correctly.



Decals on editor playmode, working correctly. Floor is set to render decal light layer and cube is not.


Decals on build, not respecting light layers.

"Use rendering Layers" option on URP asset did not seem to affect anything. I have only one render pipeline asset and quality level, so they should not affect things.

Unity 2022.2.20
URP 14.0.7