@MACHIN3, I sent you an email one week ago and because you didn’t reply, I thought that you didn’t receive it and I sent it again few days ago, but no reply from you. You received my message or you don’t want to answer me anymore?
Hello MACHIN3, is there a way to change the hotkey to something else?
open the init.py, close to the top, you’ll find this
# SETTINGS
# DECALmachine pie
button = "D"
change to whatever you like and save.
I’m going to add an option in preferences for this soon.
I’m busy with work. You didn’t have a real problem with DM and it’s obvious you haven’t checked the docs. See https://machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/additional_tools/#parallax for the parallax toggle.
A global, consistant and permanent switch would be nice, but is not possible, esp if you are not using the DM asset loaders. Alternatively you could look into writing a hook for AM.
in DM, it works as it does, based on current decals in a scene. I automate as much as I can but DM will never be the solution, the quick fix to all your problems.
You suggestion in regards to diffuse maps doesn’t make any sense in context of the workflow DM is targeting (defered decals).
The atlasing obviously does pack decal normal maps, as they are part of the decal shaders.Preview videos show small slices of work I’m doing and are not intended to show of entire features.They are WIP reports.
I just found this “Working with Decal Machine” introductory tutorial by Martin Krol that other user might found useful.
Thanks for pointing that out. I don’t think it’s a good intro though, and a bit misleading in places.
Here are my comments:
4:00 - Please explain the supposed bug to me in detail: [email protected] I’m pretty sure what you think is a bug is just you not switching to cycles. I’m not aware of a black box issue that gets resolved by duplicating a box. especially since you didnt do anything with DM at this point.
6:30 - You are overcomplicating the material stuff. Switch to Cylces, dont use texture mode, which will show the currently active node in the material node tree(which you don’t even have open), use material mode instead, which will do what you want and will also show transparency. Also you don’t need to manually call the init base material. Decal Prjoect and Decal Slice will initialize the base material automatically, as shown in the feature video.
7:40 - Always place the cursor on a surface at the location you want to insert a decal
9:00 - The pre-cut (red) decals are not a good candidate for projection, as they will require some manual uv adjustment post projection 9:45 - Rotate around z using DM’s rotate decal tool instead (ctrl + alt + shift + mouse wheel).
11:15 - Setting the projection depth to 10.02 from 10.00 has no effect on what you are doing afterwards. I think you misunderstand what it does. It’s the depth of the decal project tool, useful if you are projecting on thin geometry to avoid having a projected decal on the back side as well.
12:15 - Knifing a single polygon(on the target mesh) is sometimes problematic, and the auto-uving will fail. Try knifing across multiple polygons. For a panel decal that’s just gonna be a single polygon anyway, just drop a panel decal into the scene from the asset loader and stretch it. The existing panel decal is not interfering with the knifing, as it it not selected. Its just that you are knifing a single big poly of the target box, instead of multiple, as you do when you move the plane to the corner of the box. Also, don’t project a panel decal. That’s missing the point. But anyway, you failed to set the pivot/origin when you tried to resnap it on the surface.
15:17 - There’s no need to manually cut the panels to do a transition. That’s exactly, what the panel transition tool is for.
16:45 - To fix ‘shadows’ that might appear with decals being offset too much, you should either adjust the height, or turn off glossy rays in the extra options - it’s not a shadow, but a reflection.
18:30 Intersecting a panel decal with a cutter is no trouble at all, unless you are actually selecting the panel decal as a target for the slice, which makes not sense.
18:50 As a general recommendation, you should keep the panel width default value as it is or smaller, and instead adjust panel width with the change panel width tool, after you have sliced and with real time feedback.
19:30 Changing the slice type is done via the dropdown menu. You are showing the asset loader which will drop in a single polygon panel decal, just as for the other decals
20:13 Always rotate decals around local Z(press zz), not around world axis, or as I said before using the rotate decal tool
20:45 You don’t need to do this by hand, the rotate decal tool can do this for you if you go into edit mode. Also, rotating uvs of a pre-cut decal is a bad idea, as the precut geo stays in place.
i wish you’d gotten some input from me first before posting this vid. Or had taken a look at the documentation and feature videos. I cover all the tools in detail:
https://machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/ and https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcEiZ9GDvSdWJMe__2SAWtil--lCXdIsq
There’s plenty of information on everything. I do appreciate the video, but it could have been so much better, and I feel you are misrepresenting DM quite a bit, although obviously not intentionally and without malice.
Thanks Machin3 for the detail response to “Working with Decal” video. Your responses help me understand much better the proper workflow in using the Decal plugin.
May I suggest adding support for the Principled BSDF ie Disney shader that will be included in 2.79? That’s my standard PBR shader to go these days and I’m guessing many more will also use it once 2.79 is out.
Cheers
Cool, most definitely. I was thinking there must be some kind of PBR standard shader, but hadn’t looked too much into it.
Thanks MACHIN3!
I have a Question regarding the materials with the Decal slice function. It works so far, but the material of the paneling is always showing the silver-gray color of the paneling object. I would like the seam to be the same color as the rest of the base object.
It somehow does not pick up the color of the object which it is applied to.
It’s not supposed to, although it might in future.
All decals - with exception of info decals - use a specific grey, glossy/metallic base material(Glossy Shader, RGB 0.35, Roughness 0.2) by default, which is also automatically applied by Decal Project and Decal Slice to a target object, if it carries no material.
There are also tools provided to deal with changing decal materials to something other than this default base material, but for now they all need to be based on the Glossy Shader.
For now, see https://machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/basics/#decals and https://machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/support_tools/#vmatch-material and https://machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/support_tools/#get-and-qset-material and https://machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/support_tools/#init-base-material
atlasing, downsampling, joining decals + atlas uvs and finally resetting an atlas solution and going back to individual decals
Sorry for my question: it look useful (otherwise you wont spent time in that 
) but I dont grasp the purpose of all this. I mean, someone can explain ‘when how and where’ this should be used?
Awesome work man, looking forward to working with it
“get” and “set” material does the job. Thank you for pointing the direction. 
This is important for game dev. You can use your work not only in cycles but also in Unreal Engine 4 who support decals.
In file “…\ui\pie.py”
...
class DecalPie(bpy.types.Menu):bl_idname = "machin3.decal_pie"
bl_label = "DECALmachine"
>Start
@classmethod
def poll(cls, context):
[INDENT=2]return context.mode == 'OBJECT'[/INDENT]
>End
def execute(self, context):
...
Make this modification to the plugin should prevent the DECALmachine menu from poping up over non-“Object Mode”.
Useful if you have ‘D’ key assigned to other things in sculpting, texture painting modes and etc.
Excellent, thanks!
