Decal usage WIP

[werner.poetzelberger]

Hello,

 

just wanted to post one image here. After all the nice updates of the decals, I was able to seriously working with those guys.

So here i am using the decals for refining edges, which I couldnt do just only with the terrain materials.

 

It is still a bit tricky to get exactly the right tones and values for the materials, but I think I have found a way to get what I want... so far ;)

 

Cheers.

 

werner

 

[werner.poetzelberger]

just another wip, shot.

I have to cover a lot of edges. Pretty much half way through and the decal number is counting up.

I am wondering if there will be some limitation. Atm it works absolutely wonderfully.

 

 

[nat.harrold]

omg!

[werner.poetzelberger]

here ;)

...

am I doing something really stupid?

[ulf.schroeter]

At least you are 'spoiling' world spatial tree with soooo many instances...but if you are happy with performance, who cares

[werner.poetzelberger]

Ok, I will see.
I will not have many more other kind of objects in the world.

I think it will be around 10.000 - 15.000 Decals.

 

Is this too many?

I will see. ;)

[ulf.schroeter]

Who has the time for placing 10000-15000 decals ?!? And not many other objects ? What kind of scenery are you working on ?

[werner.poetzelberger]

We are working on an art-project.

Main content is the landscape itself, walking characters in a kind of a game.

So we will have the landscape, the characters, and thats basically it. I can show more when there is more ;).

 

Would it be better to put the decals into cluster objects? Atm I cannot see a huge performance difference with/without Decals.

[ulf.schroeter]

WorldCluster might improve performance, but if you don't have any performance issues I don't see a reason to do it right now.

[demostenes]

Would it be better to put the decals into cluster objects? Atm I cannot see a huge performance difference with/without Decals.

 

Honestly i dont understand, why are you using decals so much. You have 4 detail textures per terrain chunk, you have diffuse texture....The scene you have on the picture can be easily done with 2-3 terrain textures + diffuse texture. Decals are not meant for this kind of usage.

[werner.poetzelberger]

I am using the decals to achieve detail, which I cannot get with the terrain itself.

The terrain itself has already a high resolution (1 step is 0.25 m) and I am using a 16K mask map to get down to a decent level of detail.

Still this is not enough to get what I want in certain areas.

Most of the areas of the terrain I can do with the terrain textures/materials, which is enough.

But when it comes down to eye level, it definitely gets difficult.

The other thing is, covering a huge area, but at the same time have control over details.

So in my opinion I think this is kind of a nice way to do it.

I will find out if that is overkill (technical) in the end, and I may optimize.

 

The image shows on the right side the resolution of the terrain/Mask texture, which creates kind of a Soft transition, which in some places looks ok, when sand covers the gravel.

On the left side, I do the seam with a decal, which refines the edge as I design my texture.

To be honest, I already went down to a size of 1K/decal, but I would love to use 2K textures. Unfortunately this doesnt seem to work that well, but I will test. 2K texture would deliver enough resolution to make the Image 'believable'.

I think around 1 px / 1 mm would be a very good resolution for a 3rd person camera.

 

Additional to the whole detail stuff is, that I need to create a landscape, suitable to be seen from 3 different cameras.

These cameras are 3rd person camera, ground level, kind of a observer camera some 10s m above gound looking down, and kind of a plane view, some 100 m above ground. So I need to go from High detail to low detail.

 

Anyway, I am experimenting, testing and refusing.

So probably this is not the way to go, and I am far far away from the end result ;)

 

But I am happy about any input as I am fighting a long battle. rrrr

 

Cheers.

Werner

[werner.poetzelberger]

Ok,  :lol:  :lol:

 

After finding it really exhausting placing so many decals ... I am using now only a few of them with a tiled texture as a base straight seam.

Afterwards i can bring in Variations with some smaller decals placed over the big ones.

 

Probably get the same results .... but have factor 10 times fewer decals.. hehe

[nat.harrold]

Nice efficiency improvements, could save you a few grey hairs..

Environment and textures are coming up nice.

[werner.poetzelberger]

Thx.

One of the thing is, to get an 'empty' or lets say barren landscape interesting, without seeing any repetition of things.

The combination of elements is quite interesting, but same time hard to achieve. 

 

Will be posting more stuff as it comes.

 

Cheers

werner

[demostenes]

One of the thing is, to get an 'empty' or lets say barren landscape interesting, without seeing any repetition of things.

 

Use diffuse texture for solving this issue.

[werner.poetzelberger]

Demostenes, What do u mean by that?

[werner.poetzelberger]

Update ....

 

Now I 'only' have around 1000 decals for the edges of the roads, which is quite pleasing imo.

For variations I can bring in some smaller decals.

 

The performance went pretty bad at around 4000 Decals. Now its absolutely fine again.

 

best. w. 

 

[demostenes]

Demostenes, What do u mean by that?

 

https://developer.unigine.com/en/docs/1.0/principles/objects/terrain/

 

By using diffuse texture you can wastly decrease tiling effect of detail textures. Pitty is, that terrain geometry detail and distance of diffuse texture is connected into one parametr (lods), generally I want to have terrain gemetry detailed as far as possible (what HW allows) and diffuse texture as close as possible (to remove tiling effect).

[demostenes]

 

Now I 'only' have around 1000 decals for the edges of the roads, which is quite pleasing imo.

 

Well, when projecting mesh on terrain (for example road), there should be possibility to have alfa channel to influent borders. I think it was already reuqested in some other topic.

[werner.poetzelberger]

Yes ... geometry Decals. 

Probably worth a try. Its not just a simple road I got here, so its more than just a ribbon in the landscape.

The 'roads' I have are also very broad, so texture resolution is a issue again.

 

I as well found it quite performance intense, when using such things onto the whole terrain.

 

Couldnt get it work, last time, so I kept on placing the decals, which I really love as a method.

 

The only thing I am quite desperately missing is the possibility to 'overlay' the normals as it is possible, but without using a Diffuse Texture, or lets say a Diffuse texture, which does not alter the underlying Diffuse Textures.

 

best.w.

[demostenes]

The 'roads' I have are also very broad, so texture resolution is a issue again.

 

 

You can use texture tiling for terrain, or tile detail textures for decals.

[werner.poetzelberger]

Hello back,

 

i have rethought completely the whole approach, as well we had to make some decision for the aesthetics and the whole visual appearance.

 

Now, i am still using decals, but in combination of the underlying terrain. The decals create normal detail for the very near views (detail material), the material of the decal create larger details for a medium distance, and the underlying terrain creates the detail for the overview.

Works out nicely so far.

 

In the end I have now approx 350 decals with 8 materials, rather than 10.000 (lol i am laughíng at myself).

 

cheers.w