Material Editor: Reduce Stretching on Animated Mesh

redhonour

Question!

Is there any way using the material editor that a texture can be actively kept in proportion on a mesh that is animated? Like, a way to reduce the amount of texture stretching as a mesh (like a simple plane) deforms?

JedTheKrampus

You might be able to set something up with custom UVs and interpolating between different UV sets, but that would really only work if your mesh is deformed the same amount in every area. If I were you I would try find some other solution to your problem besides animating UVs.

redhonour

Yeah, I was afraid of that.

Seems like the solution to my question might be pretty complex considering the mesh in question pretty much never deforms in the same way twice. Maybe a particle would be able to do it?

The goal, btw, is to have a ball launch, then be followed by the after image of a ball at a set interval. Right now, I have a mesh being drawn behind the ball to render a trail (like Unity's trail renderer) and I planned to have the afterimage travel the same mesh... but there's lots of stretching so it's not working the way I thought.

JedTheKrampus

Have you tried using Cascade animation trails?

https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/54773/anim-trail-data.html

redhonour

No, but thanks!

I think a coding solution has been reached that will be efficient. I'll have a look at this and learn something though. Thanks again!