I have a sphere onto which I have applied a simple procedural texture.
The next order of business is to apply an image tattoo (PNG file with transparency) to a side of the sphere facing down the negative X axis. I have been fiddling with this for a grand total of 30 minutes, and it frustrated me to the point I tore the page out of my Blender manual and threw it across the room.
Aside from being completely unable to fathom the way to set up the axes (I eventually tried all 64 combinations of axes hoping one of them might work. No luck.) I have no idea why when I apply an image map to my procedural does its colour change so dramatically.
Please help me before I damage something expensive.
add an empty where you want the decal to be. Name it āFreakingDecalGoesHereā. right there, you should feel better, like youāre making progress. Position the empty where you want the decal to be. Select the object and in the materials textures, add an image texture and yada yada. In the Map Input panel for that texture and that material, click āObjectā and in the name field, type in āFreakingDecalGoesHereDammitā. No, just kidding, only type in āFreakingDecalGoesHereā. So, what youāve done is to tell blender hey, dont map the darn texture wherever you want to like OrCo (Original Coordinates); use the coordinates of this other object.
u may have to parent the empty to the mesh. there was a tutorial on Decals if I am wrong, which I probably am.
Would you hit me if I told you Iād already tried that? Hereās what I did:
In editmode I selected the vertex that would be the center of my decal
I moved my cursor to that vertex and exited editmode
In forward view (as if facing the part I wished the decal to reside) I added the empty.
I then selected the object I wished to be decalled, and changed the texture to map to Object, and entered the Emptyās name.
Didnāt work.
I cleared the rotation on the empty. Still no luck.
I pointed each axis both towards and away from the surface I wish to decal. Nothing.
I repeated the process trying all the different map shapes (flat, cube, sphere, etc)
Still no luck.
Can you pack a blend with the decal and post it? I have several head shaped holes in the wall of my study where I was trying to place numbers on the side of billiard balls, but after a couple of hours I did figure it out.
To clarify what Rambo and I said before, the empty has to be a child of the object that is gonna get the texture. Imagine if you wanted to model a NASCAR, with freaking decals all over. You have the parent car mesh, and then a whold bunch of child empties postioned where you want the decals, with image textures mapped to each empty.
Thanks RamboBaby, yep its packed this time, I can see the number 8. However, I donāt see the number 8 when I render, do I have to activate the composite button when rendering because of the node?
just added specific Decal example to wiki textures section: http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.pā¦ecal_on_a_Mesh for future reference as this topic repeats.
Thanks Roger. This is the first time Iāve had any success with this (never bothered to read about it before). Itās worth noting that the map-type should be set to Flat, even when mapping on a sphere. Also, that the empty indicates the central position of the decal image.
Iām also guessing a small image stretches by default based on the overall dimensions of the mesh object and may need to be resized via the Map Inputs.
Thanks. Iāve read a bit about texture mapping (see link below) but never needed to understand it since I just mess with Blender and only worry about the bits I need to worry about - or that intrigue me enough to get me interested in understanding anyway. Lip-sync interested me from the start but my knowledge of texture mapping is next to nil. Iāve never successfully UV mapped anything more elaborate than a cube - but then, Iāve never really bothered to try too hard either. Mapping to an empty is something Iāll be able to put to good use though.
Hereās something that may help others get their head around ātexture spaceā and realise that it isnāt necessarily Blender thatās making it difficult - itās just a complex subject that requires some basic undertanding. (Itās worth keeping in mind that this paper uses a co-ordinate space in which Y-Axis is vertical and Z-Axis is depth.). Thereās a PDF version here but you may find some pictures are incorrect (not many though).
AndyD: done. thanks. also added about the offset and scale sliders. so hard to be complete and let everyone know what ALL the options are; Blender is so flexible. Also texture has to be Clip as well (for a single decal)ā¦
Actually, that is not quite true. To be safe it should be set to ClipCube. If you set it to Clip, sometimes you will see a mirror image of the decal bleed through on the opposite side of the object.
When you set it to Clip Cube, the Z axis of the Empty controls how far the decal āpenetratesā into the object. Select the Empty and use NKey to set the Z axis small enough to prevent bleed through, but big enough so it covers the front face of the object.
Scaling the X and Y axes of the Empty stretches and shrinks the decal.
It will also make your life easier if the decal is square, that is, is the same number of pixels wide as it is high.
I dunno, I never parented my Empties to the object, but they still worked to make decals.
Of course, if you use an image for the decal that has an Alpha mask, and you click the Alpha button in the Texture context, you can have a decal with an irregular outline.
