DECALmachine 1.9 - Export (Bake)

[@bohdan_lvov]

Finally! Congrats on that milestone!

[@MACHIN3]

Thanks, enjoy!

[@aarondraws7699]

fantastic demo actually showing practical problems one might encounter

[@MACHIN3]

Yeah, unfortunately, this Blender issue persists to this day.

[@aarondraws7699]

@@MACHIN3 not too bad to be painted out in substance painter but it is annoying.

[@simoncull9352]

This issue is a pain. I have a model where two decals are facing each other and the bleed goes through them both so can't be painted out without loosing the decals completely.

[@MACHIN3]

projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/66438 Let the Blender devs know. Nothing I can do about it. It's why I don't recommend baking decals.

[@aarondraws7699]

@@simoncull9352 it might be possible to split the mesh into different pieces and bake individually, so that everything bakes correctly then combine the normal maps into one using multiple fill layers in painter on the original unsplit mesh haven't tried it myself though.

[@mediochrea]

This is a lifesaver! Until Epic pull their heads out of their collective behinds and implement proper dbuffer decals in UE4, that is. 👌

[@remon563]

how is it possible that it is not working correctly ? I remember it being functional some years back even.

[@CptProv]

Do you have a tutorial on how to work for the high to low poly workflow on substance?

[@3DRamenArt]

Same I want that too.

[@bUildYT]

Great!

[@seandavies2535]

Great :) looking forward to the atlasing too !

[@3DGAINZ]

Some magic stuff is going on. When we can expect atlas creation for decals like you did for the 2.79 version?

[@MACHIN3]

In 2.0, no release date sorry, but It's next on my list now.

[@Toskyval]

Great! But the need to invert the height for overlap is counterintuitive (as a workaround for correct baking you are forced to 'crap' the visual result of the model? Damn, this also force extra work.). Any chance Blender Devs will 'correct' that aspect?

[@MACHIN3]

Well, I have the open bug report for the solidify issue. I hope baking in Blender gets some attention in the near future, and if it does I will make sure to provide my input. That's the best I can do right now.

[@UnchartedWorlds]

Hi, with Blender 4.2 will this process be any better? Has anything improved?

[@MACHIN3]

I don't think so. Cycles baking does not seem to get much attention.

[@NoxXxuS]

Hi, is there any up-to-date video out there showing the workflow from Blender to Unity with Decal Machine?

[@MACHIN3]

This is up to date: machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/export_introduction/

[@NoxXxuS]

​@@MACHIN3 Hey Machin3, thanks for your response. I just bought your Decal Machine (and your other addons :D) but this didn't help me much. Can you please maybe do a simple decal in Blender, export it to Unity and then show how to configure it in Unity?

[@MACHIN3]

You need to decide how you want to export, there are 3 approaches, all of them are explained. Trimsheets will in all engines even old ones, or even URP in Unity. It works with very basic shaders/materials. Atlasing would be used in HDRP with decal shaders. See machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/export_atlas/#unity Baking is the worst, with issues you will face in Blender due to an unresolved bug in Blender, but it could still be used for simple assets. The benefit here is you can texture paint the result, but you will of course lose all benefits decals provide, which is their high visual fidelity/resolution.

[@sneox6846]

How do we export the decal color map? I've been able to export the normal and AO map of my decals, but I cannot find my way to export the color map.

[@MACHIN3]

As explained in the video, normal mapped decals do not have a color map. And the tool only bakes existing decal textures. Only info decals have a color map, that you can bake.

[@victoralexandersilva5212]

@@MACHIN3 even if i cake info Decals i keep not being able to get my color texture, is the only one missing, can you explain how to do it properly?

[@MACHIN3]

Please report it properly, see machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/faq/#get-support

[@randomnamechannel9813]

Good day; Is the atlas option you mention provide the possibility to create a single atlas texture for all the corresponding decals that's been used? And if so, is there any ETA on the feature? (Alternatively, is there any convenient way to create such an atlas by hand, retaining all the correspondences with the decal's geometry, to use it in a game engine?)

[@randomnamechannel9813]

Ok, just saw the old atlas videos; is that feature already included in the current DECALmachine version? I'd happily buy it if it does

[@FrodansBoyfriend]

@@randomnamechannel9813 I think atlas will come back in 2.0

[@WistlePhone]

I'm trying to create game assets. Part of which is need modelling and applying decals/trim sheets is very well done. But when i use decals and trim panels for baking, only decals baked into maps. Can you guide me how to bake decals and trim panels into one normal map and etc? I use multiple libraries one for decals and another for trims. Sorry if my question is seemed to be foolish just need some guidance.

[@MACHIN3]

DECALmachine only bakes the decal textures to the parent object's UV space. If you want to bake the parent object's surface as well, you need to do that in using Blender or any other outside baker. Then you can combine decal and object bakes, for instance in Substance Painter, or even in Photoshop. II don't recommend baking as the export workflow when working with Decals, as you loose all the benefits that come with them. Atlasing and Trimsheets are a better approach.

[@jeffspinner6579]

Wow this is complicated...but this means in some form, I _can_ bake and export after I clean up and add together the normals and AOs in Substance Painter and then use these textures in UE4? I ask what sounds stupid from a smart place, honest. Before I invest possibly a month of learning and tightening up my craft, I want to ensure what I think I can do, I can do, i.e., instead of geo on assets at distances that won't make a difference, I can use decals from decal machine, bake them, clean them up and combine them in Substance Painter, export them, import them into UE4 and render them...?

[@MACHIN3]

machin3.io/DECALmachine/docs/export_introduction/

[@jeffspinner6579]

@@MACHIN3, and there it is: Decal machine 2.0. Magnificent.

[@RunTheTape]

Hi MACHIN3. How is it going with 2.0? Can you send a preview version to your current customers at least ? Even without documentation.

[@Toskyval]

The baking-through issue have been solved with latest Blender version? If not, which workaround you can use aside from brush correction?

[@ahtiandr]

Well you can actually join the decals with your high poly and bake that way but it requires some setup and you wont probably be able to bake all the maps in one go. I can show small video process of how to bake normals and ao that way if you are still interested

[@prasadparker6303]

can we bake combined texture with lighting and info in one Single color map with your tool

[@MACHIN3]

No DECALmachine only bakes the existing decal textures to the parent object's UV space.

[@Super-id7bq]

Hi! Have any of the caveats at the start of the video been resolved (in regards to it being a flawed process) or is the process still the same? Thanks :)

[@MACHIN3]

Still the same right now, see developer.blender.org/T66438 for progress.

[@hnx9083]

Will GPU baking be added in the future?

[@MACHIN3]

It does that already if you set your device to GPU in the render settings.

[@ajayhirur]

decal machine is not applying metalic color while baking, its simply giving plain white,, why is that.. ?

[@MACHIN3]

DECALmachine bakes decal textures, and nothing else.

[@Rawdawgggg]

@@MACHIN3 I believe he means how are you baking the metallic color from the simple and subset decal on to the texture map. The tool seems to only bake out normals and AO. In the example video it appears like subset and simple decals bake the color and metallic channel as well.

[@MACHIN3]

@@Rawdawgggg No, only the decal textures are baked. As a part of this the subset masks are baked as well. With these you can set the metallic color and roughness to whatever you want. Have a look at the bake preview node setup if you want. It's just using the subset masks.

[@Rawdawgggg]

@@MACHIN3 ahh thanks for the explanation, I was wondering how it appeared like that in your video as well. Curious if it would be possible to have it bake the color/roughness/metallic ete of subset and simple decals, or have the option to do so instead of the mask in the future for people who do not need to dial these in exactly. I understand its not within the scope of what this addon is primarily intended for, but just curious.