How to Place Decals into the Editor

 

Overview

The following walkthrough gives you an overview how to setup and place decal in the Editor Tool, how to assign a material and the different projection types you can assign to your decal. 

Placing a Decal in the Level

Selecting the decal entity

 

To place a decal in the game, you have to first activate Follow Terrain, then go into the Misc Object Type library located in the RollupBar and select Decal. 

Placing a decal in the level

 

Select the decal by clicking the mouse button, and then move the mouse into the perspective viewport. The Follow Terrain tool that was previously selected will snap the new object to the terrain as you move it around. 

Click to place the decal in its current position. You can then move/rotate/scale the decal by using the Editing Mode commands located in the Edit menu or on the EditingMode ToolBar. 

 

Setting up the decal material

 

A decal material has to be marked with the Decal flag in the Shader Generation Parameters in the material options, as shown below. 

First open the Materials folder and then the Decals folder in the Material Editor. All decals in here are correctly set up for use on decals. 

Once you have selected a material click the Assign Material to Selection button. 

Decal Projection types

 

Decals have 4 different projection types, numbered 0 to 3. To change this, select the decal and change the value in the Projection type line, shown below. 

Projection Type 0

The decal will be displayed in the exact same position in space as where you placed the center of the object. 

Projection Type 1

The decal will be projected onto the geometry of an object in the level. It will be projected along the opposite direction to the blue Z axis. 

Projection Type 2

The decal will be projected directly on to the terrain of your level. 

Projection Type 3

This projection type is a combination of type 2 and 3, and will be displayed on both the terrain and objects. 

Manual placement of decals on objects or the terrain

 

Select the decal entity, activate Reorientate and use Mouse shortcuts to place the decal:

 

This will speed up placement enormously. 

Result

 

Good placement of decals can bring your level to life. They can also be used to create seamless transitions between many different objects.