StarCitizen shader metal melting Decal technique how to achieved it?

arturMPA

Hi,

I'm currently working on my final college project where I have to make a game in this case I'm using unity, the project consists of a game similar to Rogue Squadron / Tie Fighter. I want to try to implement a similar damage model to that star citizen, I work with 3ds max and I would say my level is slight below of a professional, I also starter to program some basic shaders.

I posted a similar thread on Starcitizen Forums ask a dev but they might be busy and there might be people here that have implemented similar features.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/trying-to-replicate-decals-of-melting-metal-but-no

You can see here the decals running on this production video:

https://youtu.be/Bbq2Crt8pTA?t=33m33s

As you can see in this video, a decal of melting metal is applied where the laser hits it also fades out and increases brightness with time, I'm new to shaders but my question would be how can I technically achieve this?

1 - is it a Quad , a new piece of geometry with a texture that the shaders keeps fading out the color? How does this seem to not be a sticker..

2 - is it in the actual texture of the ship? Like instead of using the UV Texture coordinate of 0 - 1 you are using in -1 - 0? (would this allow to control the brightness and color from this texture without applying to the main diffuse texture on the 0-1 coordinates?)

3 - are you working directly on the main diffuse texture? If so, how can you have each of those decals fade with different timers if they are all on the same texture?

I tried googling but haven't had much success, if you guys could just point out or give me a general idea of how this works, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you for your attention.

Shrike

Have 2 models, a internal damage model and a hull model. Make your laser apply vertex colors.
Make a shader that goes transparent when a certain vertex color. Then add the bling effects, blend the borders with grunge, add the heat effect. 

They only allow certain areas to be destroyed, so blend with a 'allow damage map' if desired 

Then as a bonus, you could try adding depth to the broken layer with normal or parallax or other tricks 

The 'flying off' parts are probably hand coded on a per ship basis, but you could look at glass techniques from other games for that, that is the only hard part 

Obscura

There is a whitepaper about this. Its on the first page of the Star Citizen decals thread.

arturMPA

@Obscura

I had seen that thread but must have mixed the ship damage model link,  Thought I  read most of the decal materials and how to achieve those looks through deferred lights.

Thanks for everyone comments, devs also shed some of the info on RSI Forums.