The correct way to make decals in Blender (NO SHRINKWRAP)

Рет қаралды 26,908

Күн бұрын

Someone made an addon based on the technique! Get it here: blendermarket.com/products/ea...
It is a bad idea to use shrinkwraps for decals. I show you a more robust technique. It’s more useful, looks better, and works in more situations.
I talk about what makes this technique better, how to link textures to empties, how to limit its projection within the empty, working with PBR decals, order of operations, using one decal on multiple objects, and more…
I always appreciate feedback for my videos. Keep it nice and constructive.
▶️ CHAPTERS ◀️
00:00 - The new way to make decals
01:50 - Making the graffiti
02:30 - Object coordinates
04:10 - Mixing with the material
04:37 - Limiting the depth
07:20 - Making the sewer grille
08:06 - Where to download decals
08:30 - Object coordinates
09:09 - Working with alpha
10:10 - Using a node group
10:48 - Dirt on multiple objects
▶️ KEY TAKEAWAYS ◀️
🔹 Stop using shrinkwraps for decals
🔹 Hide awkward intersections with decals
🔹 Download decals from Substance 3D Assets and Quixel Bridge
▶️ CREDITS ◀️
Music used in my videos:
Anything by Cullah is great.
I use music from chillhop.com.
Leavv, Maduk - Company chll.to/65763621
Masked Man - Joop chll.to/486760a9
Mo Anando - In Sequence chll.to/561c61c7
Knowmadic, Shy Guy - I Miss You chll.to/b6b88799
C Y G N - Take it Eazy chll.to/5fe84b82
C Y G N - Emotions chll.to/f9f8fdf7
C Y G N - Sunset Drive chll.to/c9fcaee0
cocabona - Bushwick chll.to/caec7854
▶️ WHAT DO I DO NOW? ◀️
Well, if you have nothing better to do, you could read my blog. I have a few articles about 3D and creativity at robinruud.com. Enjoy.

Пікірлер: 141

@fleity 6 ай бұрын

I disagree with this being in general superior to mesh-based decals. Texture / Shader based projections are nice and this is a good tutorial no questions asked, but don't dismiss Mesh decals that easily, they are great in terms of performance (thinking about runtime in a game engine here) because you use them together with small and tileable textures to create surfaces which would need huge texture resolution if baked and keep all the unique data as low as possible. The artist-time management overhead of not having to insert the projection into every material it should touch can also important at times. Nevertheless, good tutorial and the technique absolutely is worth knowing too, thanks for sharing.

@robinsquares 6 ай бұрын

You're right! This is a bit slower to make. Maybe something can be done with the asset browser? Do you want to explain why shrinkwrap is better for performance? I would think it's the other way around.

@fleity 6 ай бұрын

@@robinsquaresThanks for answering, sure, but keep in mind this comes from a game dev's / tech artist's perspective. There are multiple angles to this. Lets say you have a brick wall, fully textured front and backside, it uses one tileable 512x512 texture which is repeated various times over it and you add a bunch of mesh decals to it. The decal atlas texture might be 8k x 1k because we got a huge line of letters on it and a few other things. Both these reusable textures still need less memory than a single baked-decal 8k x 8k texture map. And memory, especially gpu memory, is precious :D The shrinkwrap as a projection method, deformer, is not cheap in terms of performance, absolutely not, in that regard you are thinking correctly, but applied... it's just another mesh. It is another draw instruction for the gpu, that is not for free but neither is the node group. Imagine you wan't to place 50+ decals on a huge spaceship doing that with a node group each will blow up the shader network. It really depends on the use case :)

@robinsquares 6 ай бұрын

@@fleity Very well articulated. Thanks for explaining that. I'll pin your comment to the top if that's okay.

@NicCrimson 6 ай бұрын

@@fleityBut this doesn't matter if you are baking textures right?

@just_archan 5 ай бұрын

@@NicCrimsonit has. Baked textures are relatively large compared to textures that you can tile. Sometimes it have sense when you are baking height/normal map that will replace lot of vertices. Some game engines like ie Vrage from Keen Software House can use central library of textures. Even with moded blocks. So you can use single texture on multiple models ( and multiple textures on single model too ). As example I will say that I created for this game particular block few years ago for one server Modpack. Due to phisic engine changes since then it had some issues. As I don't co-operate with that community anymore, this model was reworked recently, and new modeller, while he created really nice looking block, he used baked texture and not only mod become 30 times larger (8mb mine, 330mb new one), it got now some issues in game, as not only it doesn't render many times on weaker machines, it make huge performance impact on machines with less vram. On cards with more than 8 GB ram it performs actually better than mine as got less vertices, but gain is negligible compared to loses on weaker machines.

@faustoart 6 ай бұрын

This is an extremely useful tutorial, so congratulations! Anyone that have tried Unreal Engine know that the decal workflow is extremely, extremely powerful, I just don't understand why Blender don't have a more straight forward way to work with decals. I know that Decal Machine addon exists, but I don't know if it's any good. Any way, your method is perfect, so again congratulations, I wish you a lot of success with your channel! I'm your subscriber 2211 I guess 😀

@Cypoes.graphics 6 ай бұрын

This is pretty much how DecalMachine does it (well DecalMachine is an addon does stuff automatically and its a bit more advanced in the shader department)

@faustoart 6 ай бұрын

@@Cypoes.graphics I really need to test it properly, I'll give it a try! thank youu!

@toonanimationstudio 6 ай бұрын

In a simple level in ue5 i use almost 100 plus decals 😂😂 can't live without them

@marcfuchs6938 3 ай бұрын

So in 3 months you grew from 65 to 14k subs. Well deserved, because this tutorial is awesome. While mesh-based decals certainly have their important use cases, I also mainly wanted to go with a method, that wouldn't generate z-fighting or have a visible distance between decal and surface. This is going to be very helpful!

@nurb2kea 6 ай бұрын

I do it with different UV maps for each decal on the mesh base material. Soo... no need for extra meshes, shrinkwraps, nodes for placement and cut the backface texturing etc. Just one material, with different UV maps applied to different decal images, mixed and mapped together in shader editor. Plus you can mix in the normal, rughness, masks ....data into the base material... In my opinion that is better & quicker than extra meshes, empties, modifiers, nodes for backfacing etc.

@aegisgfx 22 күн бұрын

This is the correct way

@Siphonife Ай бұрын

I dream for a day that blender could implement an automatic way for the decal to append itself to any shader it needs to in decal groups.

@PaperHunter 6 ай бұрын

Great technique and the perfect pace and level of instruction for a tutorial. Genuinely worthy of a like and subscribe.

@tiavstudio 6 ай бұрын

As I gear up to return to my education on blender and all things 3d, your videos are excellent. I appreciate you taking the time to make these. Can't wait to see more. Cheers!

@vizdotlife 6 ай бұрын

Wow, super cool technique! Thanks so much for sharing and teaching me something new in my Blender journey 🙏

@hash_studios8665 6 ай бұрын

you got a subscriber , i wanted this tutotrial for so long , every time i look for decal tutorial i found the shrinkwrap method , thnk you 🙏

@pranavlonaree6732 6 ай бұрын

Just commenting to be part of your journey. Best of luck and keep up the quality. Here to support! 👏✨

@Kidxkuma 6 ай бұрын

Great tip! I’ve been afraid to jump in to blender for some time now, coming from Max I was afraid of blenders shortcomings , but your tutorials makes the jump less scary. My new favorite 3D KZfaqr, keep em coming !🙌

@Maarten-Nauta 6 ай бұрын

super cool. I used to just paint in decal details like this onto a mask and mix that with the pbr material. But this allows for a lot more customizability later on. All techniques are useful for certain situations and its awome that you added a new way of doing it to the collection!

@BCMSi 6 ай бұрын

This is an awesome trick! NGL I sub'd when your Trends to Avoid video came out, didn't even realize you were just getting started haha honestly though, this channel is going to the moon if this quality keeps up. Best of luck!

@a.kromatyk 6 ай бұрын

This is treasure. I always open Unreal and I feel how my life would be so much easier if blender had a decal workflow like Unreal. This is crazy, Thank you so much for this invaluable tutorial.

@richard29sher 6 ай бұрын

You deserve a lot of subscribers. I just discovered your channel. It's like finding a new color!

@Covidcola 6 ай бұрын

Excellent work, excited to see more of your content

@anacata666 6 ай бұрын

Absolutely fantastic 🙏 Always struggled with decals projecting trough!

@happywasabii 6 ай бұрын

Finaly a decent solution to decals in blender! its super smart congrats🙌

@jasonbrojas 6 ай бұрын

65 subs turned into 2k real quick. Love the channel and can't wait to learn more!

@robinsquares 6 ай бұрын

I know right! I'm extremely grateful.

@tokotu123 5 ай бұрын

Really enjoyable tutorial to watch, subbed and I hope your channel growth continues!

@nathitappan 3 ай бұрын

Vary cool technique! Thanks for sharing!

@Lucas72928 6 ай бұрын

You're doing great work, keep it up!

@juancarlosuribe 6 ай бұрын

Amazing! This video is gold! Thanks for sharing man

@ramyissa20 6 ай бұрын

I love the rising of your channel, I watched 3 videos just today. Keep making the great content 👍

@colabgallery 6 ай бұрын

very smart workflow! Thanks for sharing!

@Gadubadish 6 ай бұрын

I am very happy we are getting a new blender channel, awesome stuff mah dude o7

@Kaleubs 6 ай бұрын

You articulate your ideas very well.

@AnthonyAragues 6 ай бұрын

love it. congrats on your subscribe rate lately!

@TPVPRO 2 ай бұрын

Finally! I use to do this in 3DS Max all the time much appreciated brother. 👌

@markflakezCG 2 ай бұрын

WOW, thank you. This works fantastic!

@user-tp3eq8zf1z 6 ай бұрын

This is good man very good quality and thoughtful Thank you

@zizzonedibattipaglia6247 6 ай бұрын

Just an amazing technique!

@eliyahumedia 6 ай бұрын

this is great! thank you!

@Alander787 6 ай бұрын

Finally a proper decal tutorial for Blender!

@Vanalleswa 6 ай бұрын

interesting workflow! Very refreshing and im gonna fiddle with it :) thanks!

@VertexRage 4 ай бұрын

From 65 subs to 10k in 2 months, well done! And super cool tutorial :)

@adityayewale3557 6 ай бұрын

great video it is actually the video i needed thanks!!

@VallyWake 3 ай бұрын

Meet one more new subscriber! Your channel is a lit!

@EXLR8_GHOSTY. 5 ай бұрын

this is a great tutorial, im making an abandoned house and im adding graffiti decals to the walls this is literally the exact video i was looking for when i searched how to add decals to walls :)

@thestonewolf 6 ай бұрын

I never subscribe when asked. You earned it. Good work.

@ampmodclips 2 ай бұрын

awesome thanks!!!

@pZq_ 4 ай бұрын

amazing 🧡

@AljulandaAlsaidi 6 ай бұрын

Broooooo u doin great useful tutorial

@PolyRidge 6 ай бұрын

yo wait... what? a day ago you had 65 subs, and now ur 3k??!? congrats man! thats amazing! deserved, this tutorial is fantastic!!!

@mind_of_a_darkhorse 6 ай бұрын

Keep up the great work! give it some time, you obviously know what you are doing!

@AnthonyHortin 6 ай бұрын

This was super helpful. Thank you 🙏 Looking at your sub count now, it looks like a lot of people agree. I’m happy to add one more to that number.

@10MinuteEditing 5 ай бұрын

A very underrated channel luckily I found ❤

@NicCrimson 6 ай бұрын

Nice I've been doing this for a while and had problems with the projection. Now only is there was an easy way to copy paste instead of having to create a new node for each decal.

@robinsquares 6 ай бұрын

I agree. It's an area where Blender could use some improvements.

@46docrossi 6 ай бұрын

Awesome tutorial, thank you. Well-deserved subscription from me. You will soon be on your way to 10k subs. 😀👍

@black-sidedsun9219 9 күн бұрын

Damn awesome, thank you

@abuKaJeiN. 6 ай бұрын

That will be really useful for assetto track making

@stoinercraft6389 6 ай бұрын

this is so cool

@mikem727 3 ай бұрын

Subscribed, and just picked up the addon and playing around with this bad boy as I'm typing this ....Well done my man!!!

@icedriver2207 Ай бұрын

You got my subscription.

@franzmarley 6 ай бұрын

this is gold

@iPEMiC. 6 ай бұрын

Great and simple to understand! Seems that you have good tips for us about lighting also right?

@christiangschweng1552 6 ай бұрын

Woohooo...coming from Cinema4D, that was one of the things I was missing so much in Blender. Thanks Robin, this is amazing

@olejorgensen1964 3 ай бұрын

Great! - you earned a new subscriber :-)

@Benn25 6 ай бұрын

I was looking for this technique for months. Thanks a lot, and as it was fairly easy, I feel kinda dumb ^^" Thanks, subscribed.

@Tizian_Pichler 6 ай бұрын

Nice stuff

@SeeYouInBluffington 6 ай бұрын

Very nice

@hoyteternal3173 Ай бұрын

finally, something similar to projected decals like in game engines

@Dhruv1223 6 ай бұрын

this is the way i used to do it in 3ds max, maya, c4d etc. Thanks for showing the correct method. I always used to see the shrink wrap method and used to think "what nonsense is this" unless its not an external object (which for some reason cant be embedded into the main object) theres no reason to use shrink wrap!

@syedsafisalam6799 6 ай бұрын

It's funny how you have so less subscribers. You deserve much more. This technique was the one i was always trying to figure it out but couldn't do it by myself. You are a genius and thanks to you. Because of decals and lumen, i started working on unreal engine. But if blender's eevee next is similar to lumen, I'll get back to working in blender ❤❤. Once again thank you and please make such amazing tutorials. Love from India.

@rajendrameena150 6 ай бұрын

Your tutorials are very practical and out if the box, i am assuming you are watching best of best content and here is the result.

@robinsquares 6 ай бұрын

Generally, I learned on the job.

@yoman4802 6 ай бұрын

Well, he did say in a different video that he quit goldbox

@Mr.LeoNov 6 ай бұрын

Ayoooo that's so helpful!!!!!! Thank you so much :> Wish there was an add-on that automates all of this but hey, blender is blender

@SnoopThePunk 4 ай бұрын

Thats what i am talking about,fakin awesome dude!😊

@jaydeepranpara8945 6 ай бұрын

Nice 👍

@fish3170 6 ай бұрын

This is great, I use it myself quite a lot. One thing to keep in mind is that there are issues with motion blur when the decal empty is parented to a moving object.

@robinsquares 6 ай бұрын

Good to know!

@dopamineshock5257 16 күн бұрын

It was very helpfu, thank you! I wonder if there's a way to have a decal function like that without it being tied to a material, though?

@jakejake6029 6 ай бұрын

Another wizard in CG world

@bitwise4996 4 ай бұрын

Creating an addon for this would be amazing.

@eobet 3 ай бұрын

Someone just did (and even linked this video)… wonder what the video creator thinks?

@nealmenhinick 6 ай бұрын

Originally I used this technique, but takes much much longer to build out your scene compared to shrinkwrap. Now I feel the best method is to use an addon todo this for you

@jakejake6029 6 ай бұрын

And now we want the baking process of that

@robinsquares 6 ай бұрын

Oh, I forgot to link one. Thanks for reminding me. In the meantime, just look up baking on KZfaq. There's tons.

@y2isgraphic 2 ай бұрын

Ive tried for days to put graffiti on a displaced wall and this solved it

@Gr13fM4ch1n3 6 ай бұрын

I've learned like 500 shortcut keys from this video alone than my 3 years using blender.

@Rybz 5 ай бұрын

Awesome, I love this. I don't have much experience with Unreal Engine yet, but would it be easy to convert this project to Unreal? Or is this method only best for Blender exclusive workflows? Idk how decals in Unreal work but I wanna work with it alongside Blender in the future. 🤔

@KhalilBizani 5 ай бұрын

Am lucky today because I found my second precious rendering video in KZfaq!!! the previous one was about decals in twinmotion.

@olivierjacquet Ай бұрын

Ohhh man !!! and it bakes !!!

@fullyleaded 3 ай бұрын

WOW!

@Gen_nus 6 ай бұрын

subscribed

@Marshimized 6 ай бұрын

super useful stuff here man, thank you! is there a way to save those group nodes like the one you made for the sewer grate to file? i think it'd be really nice to be able to build a library of decal nodes that are easy to throw in a material when you need it

@Delusional3d 6 ай бұрын

Only way I’ve managed it is to create an asset of a sphere with the material group applied. Drop the sphere into your scene and the material group can be found in the add node group menu.

@Marshimized 6 ай бұрын

@@Delusional3d that's actually so smart, i think this might be the way to go. appreciate you homie!

@robinsquares 6 ай бұрын

@Marshimized I have them in my asset browser. Look into saving node groups to the asset browser. It's drag-and-drop after that.

@Marshimized 6 ай бұрын

@@robinsquares i thought i remembered doing that for a tutorial or something a long time ago, exactly what i was looking for. thank you! also, the notification i got for this comment shotened your comment to "i have them in my ass..." and i spit out my tea, so thanks for that too

@Delusional3d 6 ай бұрын

Oops 😂

@happywasabii 6 ай бұрын

my guy is speedrunning youtube subscriber in one day lmao

@y2isgraphic 2 ай бұрын

How can I mix the roughness as well or is it already added when applied to the base

@amadeogarrigaestada Ай бұрын

HOLA SE PUDE CREAR ASSET BROWSER DE CALCAMONIAS PARA USAR ESTE ADDONS GRACIAS

@AllThingsFilm1 5 ай бұрын

These node streams for texturing look pretty intense for new users like me. Is there a way to save some of these to re-use?

@DevilDaggersFan 2 ай бұрын

Baking tut please 😊

@nathitappan 2 ай бұрын

Hey there! Quick question: do you have any insight on how we go about separating (for baking) a texture that has the decals applied after the Principled BSDF? I'm used to baking the separate texture maps by what's plugged into the BSDF node, but not sure how to include the decals on the texture since they are added with a mix shader. TIA!

@robinsquares 2 ай бұрын

Hey! Whatever goes to the material output is what the baking renderer will use. Just try it out. I think it'll work as you expect it to.

@user-uu1ko7oi8z 2 күн бұрын

Shit good, very good

@jeffg4686 6 ай бұрын

I don't know if you're into add-ons, but a graffiti maker geometry nodes setup would be pretty cool, and not that hard.

@eggchucker1 3 ай бұрын

Holy shit i had no clue this was even possible in blenders

@itotallyagreewithyou3451 5 ай бұрын

Awesome tutorial! How do i do if i want to add the same decal again on the same object? Like if you wanted to reuse that graffiti decal and just put it next to the other one on the same wall. Ive been trying to figure it out, but cant come up with a solution. If i copy the first one as a group, and assign the decal to a new "empty", the previous one just dissapears. I feel like theres probably some easy solution im missing lol Anyways thanks for the great tutorials, i subbed!

@robinsquares 5 ай бұрын

It's not really straightforward, so don't feel bad for not figuring it out. I don't know how much you know about nodes, but I'll try to describe it to you. You first need two sets of texture coordinates. So you do the object coordinates twice, and select each empty. These coordinates can be mixed with each other using a mix node. Remember how I made sure that it didn't project all the way through? Well, that's a white mask that's only inside one empty. Use that mask to select the right coordinates for that empty. I don't know how intelligible that was honestly. Tough to explain through text. If you're desperate, send me an email and I'll get you a screenshot.

@itotallyagreewithyou3451 4 ай бұрын

@@robinsquaresThank you so much for the fast reply! It works now! Have a nice day, and looking forward to your future videos! Gonna try out your lights tutorial later aswell^^

@6TheBACH Ай бұрын

@@robinsquares I'm late to this, but I'm not able to add a second or third image to my mesh. I really do not get what should I do. Could you (or anybody) help? Thanks

@mohanpugaz 25 күн бұрын

This is the method i always use. But there is one problem. When i want to instance/duplicate an object which is textured in this method. If i move it to other places the textures wont stick. We have to duplicate that projection object and relink them for every individual copy with multiple shaders.

@Al-Dezel12123 2 ай бұрын

Hello @Robin Squares, can i use this setup for commercial by making it as an addon?

@robinsquares 2 ай бұрын

Of course! I don't own the technique. Someone has already given it a shot. Look up "Stamp it!" on Blender market

@Al-Dezel12123 2 ай бұрын

@@robinsquares Ok thanks a lot man😁

@yoman4802 6 ай бұрын

I think you named that metal lid on the ground wrong. Personally i prefer "manhole" with it's respective cover

@robinsquares 6 ай бұрын

I have a manhole tutorial on my onlyfans

@shadows1235 4 ай бұрын

can you bake it the texture?

@TheFeanture 6 ай бұрын

Omg.. I already subscribed on previous video. If it goes like this you will need patreon o_-

@aegisgfx 22 күн бұрын

Seems to me it would be a lot easier just to make a second UV map based on a front projection, and then attach that UV map to the decal and then mix them. About 10% of the steps would be needed

@robinsquares 16 күн бұрын

You hereby have my permission to do it that way.

@nathitappan Ай бұрын

Alrighty, last question: the technique works perfectly on a dark surface, but as soon as I add the decal over a brighter surface the decal loses color/fades out. So odd. Any idea what would cause that?