Terrain Shader Layer or Decal Projectors?

Noth

Hey! I'm wondering if you guys think these cracks are more likely a layer of tileable texture within the terrain shader, or if they're decal projectors? They seem pretty sporadic and intentionally placed? Cheers!

Eric Chadwick

I would bet it's a tiled texture in the shader, and blended in here and there with vertex color. 

Noth

@Eric Chadwick Yea, that's more performant, probably what Nintendo would do.

Michael Knubben

That, or the other type of decals: those on a secondary uv channel, blending in another texture/material. 

So essentially what Eric said, with the main difference being: vertex-blending usually comes with a noise to deform the blending mask (to combat the obvious vertex gradients and add a bit natural more detail).