Hi there I need to build quite many houses (flats and villas) which all look pretty much the same but with different colours and details. Although it is not very important that they all look exactly as in real life, it looks a little too obvious that they are all the same. Excpecially the villas would need some more variation... So i came up with this superb idea: Instead of making quite large 1024x1024 textures for each house I made ONE texture with different kind of windows and doors. Then made a bunch of smaller 256 or 128 textures that represent all kinds of walls, bricks, wood, etc. Now it is very cheap to produce any kind of houses with different forms and materials and then create the details (windows, doors) on top the house. It takes only 2 polygons for each window and I can place them where I want without extra cost. Now the problem: The windows are 10 - 25 mm above the house wall and allthough separated to a its own GMT marked as decal, they still flicker. Could it be because of the decal object (windows) is actually around the house, means they are in front and at the back of the house at the same time? Or is decal only good for road material? Any suggestions how to stop flickering? Or maybe a tip how to achieve same results with different strategy?
I'm curious about this as well, I figured marking something as a decal took away some depth testing no matter which axis direction the object is placed in. There's also the 'sorted' checkbox in materials, I'm not sure what this does though.
I don't think you need to make them decal objects. If you attach the doors/windows planes to the house Geo, I believe it'll render properly. I think that's what I have done, anyway. Will update after I check on it if I'm mistaken.
That is what I did to begin with. Initially I had 5 mm spacing between the wall and windows. It looked pretty good most of the time but in certain distance or angles it starts to flicker. I then increased the distance to 10 - 15 mm but it did not help. Only then I separated the windows to separate Decal GMT. I thought it would be a good idea as these dont need to be collide or shadow caster either. Hard to say if it made a difference...
Depending on how many doors and windows you have, I would still consider the option of cutting the polys into the larger wall poly, in the same 2D plane (so no extrusions/tricount explosion). It's a bit of extra work, but it will never produce unexpected results. Anything that requires touching the Z-buffer can result in headaches, especially if it's long distance stuff.
Good point, should not be different =) Anyways, to cut all windows from the main poly would be really messy and even worse if/when geometry needs editing. Imagine moving a window one meter...
If it's close to the track, it should be no problem to use Decals. The Wing at Silverstone uses them for example. Decals do become less effective in the distance. For distant background objects that require decals, I typically use 2-5cm ... yep .
