Decal Problems

[theonebutcher]

Hi Guys,

Ive been working on my scene for a little while now and have only just started adding in decals and have run into a problem. I have setup my decal and applied it to the entity and all works fine when being used with "planar" settings however as soon as either deferred, or Projectonstaticobjects options (or any other projection option) I run into a problem.

It appears as though my decal is more transparent than before and has a higher level of specularity that in the settings.

I have done a little playing around and have founf that this doesnt occur when it is projected onto a material with low Spec and Gloss levels? I cant sadly reduce the gloss levels in my scene as im working a lot with metals and they dont look right when turned down.

Ive tried sorting this all day yesterday and now need a little help please is anyone has come across this issue.

Here is the shader of the decal:
http://i.imgur.com/8X9ll.jpg

Here is a comparisson of the two:
http://i.imgur.com/SPkip.jpg

Here are the deferred/projection settings:
http://i.imgur.com/Q6uRw.jpg

Here are the planar settings:
http://i.imgur.com/hjP7W.jpg

Cheers for taking a look, any help appretiated at this point!

[e-freak]

Did you place those exactly on the ground or are they a bit higher?
What happens when you set the Non-Deffered one to Project on Surfaces and the Deffered one to Planar?
What happens if you disable Decal in the Shader params?

Technically the difference is, that a Deffered Decal will always be rendered on the next surface, while a non-deffered one always creates geometry (afaik - I'm not an engine programmer!). If they are deffered they are basically always defaulting to Project to nearest surface, while a Non-Deffered can be used as a true planar overlay.

[theonebutcher]

@e-freak: Thanks for responding to this mate, The decals in the images above were placed directly on the surface with CTRL+SHIFT click (dont know if that definatly aligns them directly to the surface though) .

When the two planes have their settings for projection changed the results are the inverse from the above sadly.

If I disable decals in the shader all non projected/deferred decals turn to blac "islands" and deferred and projection retain the same problems.

Ive tried everything I can think of to fix this, as far as I can tell the decals seem to appear to inherit some of the spec/gloss of the underlying surface. If I turn the spec/gloss of the metals down then the decals start to behave themselves.

Ive been trying to sort this on and off for a couple of days now with no luck, I might just have to work with what I have in this case sadly. Unless you or anyone else has any suggestions?

Cheers again

[e-freak]

well you want the behaviour from the left one, right? you don't need to set decals to be deffered and they don't need to be projectors either. using decals just as static planes is completely ok and i think we did this in C2 most of the time as well...

[theonebutcher]

Thanks again man, yeah i think thats what ill have to do otherwise they looks like goo! its just gonna mean more careful placement in the environment! :poly142: