Using Deferred Decal Blend Mode on a Mesh in UE4
Hello! I've been doing some research into the "Star Citizen Decal" Workflow and want to know if it is possible to do in UE4? (as seen in the Polycount thread here : http://polycount.com/discussion/155894/decal-technique-from-star-citizen/p2)
The standard decal components + a material with deferred decal domain selected yield some of the desired results. You can have just normals/roughness/color project, so I assume it is possible to apply this rendering process to a static mesh.
Unfortunately it is not a feasible solution to have hundred or even thousands of decal components hand placed on an object in the blueprint editor.
It would be ideal to recreate something very similar to what BAC9-FLCL has done in Unity with a custom shader.(http://i.imgur.com/V99Zlwt.jpg).
The decal material can be blended over any number of underlying materials, and then selectively contribute/override Color/Roughness/Metallic/Normal properties.
Is it possible to re-purpose the DecalComponent projection method (FDeferredDecalProxy?) and materials and somehow apply that to a mesh overlay? -Or- Would creating a custom Unreal shader (.usf) be a more appropriate solution?
Thanks for your time!
Replies
Please post in this one if you have an answer!
But there are 2 other possibilities, they are described in the Ster Citizen decals thread. One is to use locally projected textures on the base geometry. Not the cheapest, and most user friendly solution, but its simple, and it works. The another solution is to use 2 uvmaps. The first one would be for mapping the base materials, the uvs of the decals and the base mesh are "matched". And then in the second UV channels, the decals are mapped to a decal sheet layout, and then everything is blended onside a material.