[SOLVED] Deferred Decal Mesh issues

[ted.mcclung]

I'm creating a road system with deferred decal meshes, and I'm having some trouble wrapping my head around your decal bit masking system. I've set the road's decal mask to 00000001, and set all other objects' decal mask to 00000000, but the road is still rendered over the top of everything. No matter what I set the decal mask to, it still renders on top of everything. 

 

Also, when creating my roads, I've used separate hovering geometry for the painted lines and other features. When ambient light is unchecked in the material editor, the lines and other features render ok, but dark colors end up as transparent. For example, if I have a grate, and between the bars is a black color, it just renders as the concrete texture below. If I have a line of tar, or a crack in the road, it will barely show up at all. See screenshot. 

 

If I check ambient light in the material editor, it fixes that problem, but introduces this. The floating geometry's colors are correct, but the geometry is no longer rendered properly.

 

The third problem I've encountered is the performance. When adding even a small road, the framerate drops by almost 20 fps when the camera is near it. Turning on ambient light in the material editor gives a significant boost in performance, but the floating geometry's appearance is unacceptable. 

 

Does anybody have any solutions to these problems?

[silent]

Hi Ted,
 

I'm creating a road system with deferred decal meshes, and I'm having some trouble wrapping my head around your decal bit masking system. I've set the road's decal mask to 00000001, and set all other objects' decal mask to 00000000, but the road is still rendered over the top of everything. No matter what I set the decal mask to, it still renders on top of everything.

 

Please, check the <SDK>/data/samples/decals/deferred_mesh_00 sample. You can adjust Rendering group parameter for the desired objects to avoid decals to be projected on them.

 

 

If I check ambient light in the material editor, it fixes that problem, but introduces this. The floating geometry's colors are correct, but the geometry is no longer rendered properly.

You can try to adjust Polygon offset in material settings for objects that are rendered incorrectly. If this doesn't help, could you please provide us a minimal test scene?

 

Thanks!

[ted.mcclung]

Thanks, that's very helpful. The rendering group was exactly what I was looking for.

 

Changing the polygon offset didn't help the issue with the floating geometry, but I've included an archive with a very small scene in it so you can test.

DecalWorld.rar

[silent]

Thanks for the test scene.

 

We recommend you to use additional material (or materials) for the details (such as cracks) with adjusted Rendering group order parameter.

[ted.mcclung]

I'll give it a shot, thanks!