And here is the final result. I think I have that workflow with modular seams pretty much nailed. Made some improvements to decal shader and the process itself: This illustrates only the approach to the seams, but I already posted examples of isolated details, which are a lot easier to use.
So I've spent a fair bit of time trying to replicate this using Modo and UE4. I figured I should post my notes here, for anyone who is using that combo of tools: Building decals: -Using the edge and polycenter/face snap will make building the decals pretty easy. Snap all the decals perfectly to the underlying model, and…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66IGMnPgEW0 Showcase video of my simple technique. Sorry the production values are a bit shit and it's a bit long winded, but hopefully interesting anyway. Discussion @ http://polycount.com/discussion/175191/technique-showcase-unreal-4-13-mesh-normal-map-decals/
Yeah, earlier I wasn't completely sure if it works with lightmaps or not, but not we see, it doesn't :D Anyways, you don't need uvs at all if you use the tri-planar projection, because thats basically a "box unwrap" but without seams... You need uvs only for the decals.
There is no way to use this workflow in stock CryENGINE/Lumberyard, as far as I understand. It requires a special shader that selectively writes to deferred render targets instead of using straightforward alpha blending on every target equally (that's how it's possible to overlay normals without killing existing albedo,…
I suggest making a comment/request about it here: https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/pull/5463 It`s the only way Epic will know there is a demand for it (technically they are too much locked in with Fortnite and working towards their aspirations with raytracing to care much about real world problems like decals ;))
I thought the decal objects were to be attached to the parent object and thus would have the same co-ords/pivot? Or do they get brought in separately? Man, I am really wishing i was better at the technical stuff beyond just understanding normals/diffuse/metalness/roughness lol
Yes, I'm talking about tiling textures - they won't match at all with this approach, unless you are using world space triplanar mapping or local space triplanar mapping in meshes with identical pivots and positions - otherwise decal surfaces won't get UVs identical to underlying surface for their tiled texture.
@ Obscura So I have it set up correctly thus far though, right? And I only need to copy the decal material, the base mat. can be left alone or do I need to do something special to that too? Also: What are these three roughness things you have: