Decal cannot work in vray render

[beyondyong]

I using decal tool to make picture frame, using renderzone is ok, if using vray render the image cannot show out. how to setting please help.

[Justin Montoya]

I believe the Decal tool is only used for RenderZone rendering.  All the other rendering engines cannot use that style of mapping, so you will need to use the normal texture mapping method to map textures onto geometry.

 

In my opinion, the Decal tool has very limited use and should be abandoned.  

[Spannerhead]

Any movement on this?  If the decal feature (or a VRay equivalent) isn't present, it could be a dealbreaker for me.  I use them all the time.  Very handy for the kind of work I do.

[Justin Montoya]

I'm curious why the Decal tool is so important?

It's really simple to just create an offset surface, turn off shadow casting, and map an alpha channel enabled texture to it for a decal.  This works with all the rendering engines, including the Shaded engines, so editing while working in Shaded mode is much easier without having to launch the separate Decal tool that was really only meant for RenderZone rendering.

 

[¢hris £und]

Justin.  On Highly sculpted geometry, added memory is one potential drawback.

[Justin Montoya]

I could see that.

Highly sculpted geometry and FormZ isn't something we often hear used together and memory handling is also supposed to be much better in v9, so I would hope that's really a non issue in the future for people using the appropriate hardware for these types of complex geometries.  

Unless there is a way to support it using OpenGL as well, I can't really see much future in it outside of RenderZone which is being deprecated without further development.  I've looked around for other renderers that can use decals, and am not finding much outside of game engines.  

[Spannerhead]

On 9/19/2019 at 2:02 PM, Justin Montoya said:

I'm curious why the Decal tool is so important?

It's really simple to just create an offset surface, turn off shadow casting, and map an alpha channel enabled texture to it for a decal.  This works with all the rendering engines, including the Shaded engines, so editing while working in Shaded mode is much easier without having to launch the separate Decal tool that was really only meant for RenderZone rendering.

 

There are SO many things out there with two or more textures superimposed on each other.

Labels, stickers, logos, decals, etc etc.

It's so much more elegant to have the tool that replicates what actually happens in the real world rather than going through all the trouble to create additional geometry.  What a pain.

Take a Coke can for example.  I work in the retail display industry so this is a very common product type.

I'll have a base texture of the red Coke label, and a decal:  The top of the can with the pull tab.  The beauty of decals is twofold:

1. I don't have to create additional geometry just for add'l textures.
2. I can change the base texture with a single click without modifying the decal.  So if I want to change the Coke can to a Sprite can, I just highlight the Sprite can label texture in my Materials palette and click the can.  Done.

Many other situations like this.

 

 

[ThatMNTishman]

I'd like to have some clarity on the texture tool options we have. I'd probably use decal if it was in the menu for texturing. I've added it in various v8 releases, but those custom menu settings have always been disrupted with upgrades or changes to how I save preferences and workspaces in the past.

In v9 there seems to be the legacy mapping tool which I personally love having back, but if thats the case, why do we have the 'dumb' texturing tool version of it as well. I understand everyone has their preferences, but understanding the benefits of each was we move forward in v9 would be helpful to the users, I believe.

And, understanding that a tool doesn't work in vRay is an issue that needs attention in general. I sometimes have a hard time with this. Is it supposed to work and I'm not doing something right, or is it not compatible and I have no feedback information that tells me its just an OpenGL based tool. I struggle with some of that in Vray itself such as "where is a simple mirror reflection?". Do I have the right render settings on for reflections and translucency (caustics). The formZ interface falls down in these areas of feedback to the user.

Edited January 29, 2020 by andrew