QuickDecals: Decals Made Simple- Add dirt, grunge, splatters, posters, trash, etc!

[video=youtube_share;dHUJ44L4bgY]http://youtu.be/dHUJ44L4bgY

Add Detail to Your Scene with Decals!
Quick: Choose a material, click a surface- done!
Powerful: “Random” mode for detailing large areas
Efficient: Works great with Lightmaps or Dynamic Lights!

Decals are a great way to liven up your level, break up tiling textures, and generally make your game look truly detailed. You can use QuickDecals to quickly add decals such as:

• blood
• dirt
• leaks
• footprints
• grunge
• cracks and crevices
• worn and damaged areas
• posters
• notes
• burns and scorches
• windows
• doors
• …and all sorts of other visual detail!

Drag ‘n drop any material into the QuickDecals panel, then simply Ctrl+RightClick on a face to place the decal. Repeat as necessary!

If you need to add lots of random detail, switch on “Random” mode, and add as many materials as you like. Then, use the same Ctrl+RightClick to splat a random decal each time.

QuickDecals works great with lightmapping or dynamic lights, no work required on your part.

Available for $10 on the Unity Asset Store: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/6293

 

So, what exceptional advantages does this offer over Edelweiss Interactive's Decal System which is FREE??

 

Edelweiss's system is great, no denying that, and it's great that he gives it out for free. The focus, and an advantage, of this decal system is to be quick, simple, zero setup or learning curve.

The real advantage, though, is that this tool does cost. When I charge for tools, I give them serious, 100% dedicated support, user-driven updates, and troubleshooting, at all times. You can ask any of the ProBuilder/ProGrids/etc customers- 4am email replies are no problem, updates come very quickly, and I've even built a separate forum dedicated to all my Unity tools. It's a great community, where other users often answer questions before I can.

Working as a professional, I also simply prefer to use paid tools. It tells me the author has a real commitment to making that tool work properly for me- now and anytime in the future. Not that Edelweiss doesn't- I've heard he's a great fellow who makes sure his tool is well supported, and that's awesome he can do it for free! However, on a tight time schedule and zero room for error...

So- QuickDecals is very fast, simple, easy, and gets the job done well, plus has dedicated 22/7 support (I have to sleep at least sometimes...) And, just like my other tools, it will definitely be growing more feature-rich very quickly, while keeping the same speed-and-ease focus that I believe is the best feature any tool can have.

 

Good answer!

 

Sounds good, another question - will you allow decal to be created dynamically at runtime?? (eg. bullet holes, blood splatter, paint splatter on wall mesh (or any sort of mesh) by other objects such as bullets, corpse, paint bucket etc..

 

I've been thinking on that as well. It won't do it out of the box, not yet, but a user with a bit of code knowledge could fairly easily hook it into their game system and make it work that way. It's a good idea though, I'll probably add it fairly soon- feels like a very useful feature.

@RazorCut- thanks!

 

How this work for performance? Any "stress-test" made?
Looking really nice, I am searching for a decal system/plugin

 

do i have to place the decal on a flat surface ?
im waiting for your answer to buy it

 

Edelweiss' Decal System is also a black boxed plugin if I remember correctly. I'm guessing this isn't? That would be a huge pro for me at least.

 

Yep, it's just a plane-mesh decal system, at the moment.

I've tested it out a bit, mostly to confirm that the decals will lightmap and batch down properly- which they do I'm working on some large and complex levels, and will give it a test with and without these, for a real-world number.

Yep, no DLL/etc here, you get all the scripts with no hassle. So it can be easily extended, if you like.

 

Please add in support for skinned meshes, and you got a buyer here (even if you raise price)

 

Hi imtrobin- hmm, so the decal would have to anchor itself to the surface somehow, yes? Sounds tricky, but where there's a will, there's a way

 

Thanks, yahodahan...
I will wait for this, my scene will have around 50+ strutuctures, a sandbox style and so, I am looking for a good solution with performance wise.

 

Makes sense xandeck Atlasing and vertex-based resizing should be in and working soon, to really save on drawcalls.

 

Yes, will this be added?

 

I will definitely be adding it in the future, although for the moment ProBuilder 2.0 is priority for me.

 

Will you be including the decals that you show in your video?

 

Actually they are all freely available on www.cgtextures.com- hooray!
Or, download them here:
www.sixbysevenstudio.com/files/linked_files/Decals.zip

 

interesting stuff here! How about decals on corners? The run time instantiating would be nice also as well as the skinned mesh one. Definitely some stuff to add I guess. Good job so far

 

Thanks rosor- decals on corners (I assume you mean overhanging) won't work yet, sorry. It's a very fast and intuitive system, but we are still adding features. Works perfectly for 90% of decal situations though!

 

This is looking very promising. The simplicity of it is what really makes me say "wow", especially in conjunction with the rest of your awesome toolset. What I would love to see added to this is some kind of texture atlasing, or UV controls such as you use in Probuilder... so you could have different iterations of a decal on one texture/material.

oops, nevermind, I see you're on top of it already

 

I would like to see added support for decals on terrains and not flat surfaces. Is this possible?

 

@Chingwa- you bet, that's coming for sure.

@angel_m- definitely possible, thought it won't work in the current version. Right now, QuickDecals is just what it sounds- a really quick and simple way to place decals, and works especially well with ProBuilder.

 

You should mention on the Asset Store that quick decal only works on flat surface like bsp.

After having left UDK, i came on unity and search a great Decal tool. Yours was in top, but there's a lack of information in description, so now i don't know with my scene composed of meshes and your tool...
The fact that CE3 and UDK had a projected Decal system persuaded me that it will be the same on Unity, that i just had to search in Asset store and take the best optimized.

Hope it will be a future update

I will use Decal system from Edelweiss Interactive instead, too bad for my 15 bucks.

 

Hi Spam_One, sorry if that was confusing. I do show that in the videos and here, but you are correct- I need to make it more obvious on the Asset Store. It will absolutely be coming in a future update, no worries! Can you make sure and register (per the docs) so I can send you that update as soon as it happens?

Thanks!
gw

 

Thanks for your answer

I trust you and i'm happy that you will make changes on Asset Store for this. Also, i need to mention that english isnt my native language so i surely missed things in your videos :/

If that kind of feature is coming in future update, i register with pleasure !

happy to know that development is on way.

 

So does this mean this decal system only works with surfaces created inside Unity? Or will it work on any flat surface, regardless if it's a model?

 

Thanks!

Any flat surface at all

 

Sold then! Thanks for the reply!

 

@yahodahan

Do you know of a way to fix alpha wall decals from z-fighting via shaders? Adjusting the camera clip planes isn't an option due to draw distance. I found a custom shader that works perfectly for opaque decals, but haven't had any luck merging with Unity's built-in Alpha* shaders yet.

Created this thread over in Shaderlab in hopes of finding help; it contains the custom shader code that works for opaque surfaces. Any help is appreciated!

 

Hmm, I do not, sorry

This is something we will end up addressing with the non-flat surface update, though. We'll have to move to a projection-based system, I think.

 

No worries; Dantus from this thread hooked me up with precisely the shaders I needed.

 

Awesome. His Decal System is awesome indeed- far outstrips my own in terms of technical features ... not to mention free!

QuickDecals will be getting more advanced in the future, but for now it's really all about speed and simplicity. Anyway, thanks lod3 and Dantus for pointing out the special shader!

 

Liking this a lot and it could potentially save me a lot of time. One issue I'm having though is that the Ctrl-Rightclick seems very flaky. If I open the QuickDecals panel, assign a material, Ctrl-Rightclick a wall - it works perfectly. If I then go and work on something else and later come back to the QuickDecals panel (which is docked), it won't work anymore (i.e. Ctrl-Rightclick does nothing) and I have to close the panel and reopen it to make it work again.

Any thoughts?

 

The Right-Click issue, I've heard from one or two others now. Various sources tell me, using the Right-Click with editor scripting can be iffy, something to do with the editor "eating" input. I may have to switch it to Left-Click based, to get around this.

Does it work better if you un-dock (float) the QuickDecals panel?

 

I'll try it undocked and see if that helps.

Other than this issue, I really like this thing - it's very handy and does a good job. My only other suggestion would be something in between a single Material and the random option. i.e. A List of Materials like the random option uses, but with a checkbox/button next to each one so you can select which one is active. I don't like doing things "randomly", but I also don't want to drag a Material into the Inspector every time I want to change.

 

This thing is pretty neat, but the Ctrl-Right-Click thing definitely has to go It doesn't work half the time, docked or undocked. Hoping you can update this at some point.

 

Hi there.

Your plugin looks very efficient on the engine and the ease of use is incredible. I am working at a company currently and I am in charge or choosing a decal plugin and yours seems promising. One thing that is essential is that it draws the decal onto a plane rather than a projection.

So I guess my question would be is how power hungry is your tool and does it put the decal viewed on a plane or projection?

Thank you very much for your time.

 

Out traveling at the moment, so development on this is paused temporarily- sorry for the delay.

@CardDeath, this tool does simple draw onto a plane- no projection is used. Therefore, it's super efficient and not at all "power hungry", especially if you utilize batching.

 

Would this work if I needed decals to be placed on non flat objects ( example: tattoo around a players arm that can be resized etc to fit the players needs, or sticker on a car ). Thanks in advance.

 

I can't of can't believe you're using a 200-triangle mesh to show a flat surface which could be 2 triangles?

 

Hi , i used your asset in my project , and it save me a lot of time , can you add feature to create one atlas texture from selected decals.
Thank you.

 

I've got a weird problem not sure if Im using this right

I apply one decal, all is fine, if i apply a second decal, they dont show up. in the editor window i can see the decals are placed miles away from my object and are sort of greyed out and cant be moved?

I can see from the properties window it's done some sort of mesh combining? Dunno if that's related

 

Ok done a quick new project test and it was fine, started adding components and assets and it seams the RealisticFPS asset is what is breaking it, no idea how to go about sorting this, any ideas? thank you

 

Ok so its fixed now, thought I'd update in case anyone comes across this issue

With RealistFPS asset you have your "!!!FPS Player Main" object, inside that there is the "!!!FPS Player" object which contains a script called "World Recenter"

I disabled this script and the decals now work, I have no idea what this script is for, even the description baffles me, but removing it fixes the decal problem and I havent noticed any other side effects as yet

 

Sorry, only works on flat meshes for now.

The plane QuickDecals uses is only 2 tris- were you meaning something else?

Using a texture atlas is planned for the future, but I haven't had time to work on this at all lately. It will be added though, thanks!

Hi TheAMes- sorry for all that trouble you had, and thanks for sharing the fix. Seems there is a conflict of sorts with that script, I'll see if I can get in touch with the author.

 

Works great so far apart from one weird issue, in the video you place them fine, but when I do it, I see some sort of Z-fighting issue, you know that flickering when they co-exist in the same z coord. How exactly do we avoid this?

Thanks!
Gaz.

 

Grab the shaders from this free asset: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/3779

I can't recall exactly which shader it is, but the author made one that disables z-fighting.

 

Odd, QuickDecals should, in theory, place the decal just far enough away that z-fighting won't occur. Are you able to send me a copy of the object that is having this issue, and the decal you are applying? It shouldn't require a special shader to solve, hopefully there is a simpler solution that I can find for everyone

 

@yahodahan

User radiantboy is likely encountering the same issue I was if you recall, so I quoted our old conversation from this thread and segued it into his.

Ultimately, unless you tweak your project so that the player can never be too far from a decal placed with QuickDecals, you're going to get z-fighting once you're outside the range of sorting precision. The shaders I linked to disable z-fighting is the only fix that worked, and it makes sense; the decal is there to compliment a surface material like paint that fuses to a wall. In most decal situations anyway, this is what you want, hence no need to have the renderer spend cycles sorting surfaces that are meant to behave as one anyway. The bonus to this is that you can now make the decal co-planar to the surface to avoid the player getting up close and seeing it hovering off the surface it's placed on.