Workflow for Creating Normal Map Decals in Blender

[@cg_cookie]

We're taking a vote on the [deecals] vs [dekhals] dilemma...cast your vote here: kzbin.infoUgzsN_ZdCdNeJT3iqOh4AaABCQ

[@Tovi7]

If you google "decal", you get the correct pronunciation as a playable audio file. The phonetic is /ˈdiːkal/, which would be pronounced as "deeh-kahl".

[@timmturner]

@@Tovi7 Indeed, it took me a second to understand what a dekhal was as I've never heard anyone pronounce it in that manner.

[@chrisdrysdale4311]

I grew up pronouncing it "deckle"; switched to "dee-kal" due to peer pressure, and after learning that it's actually short for " decalcomania", I suppose I should be saying "d' kal" (like "demand" except replace the "mand" with "kal". Whew!

[@cg_cookie]

@@chrisdrysdale4311 Thank you for sharing your journey. You're an inspiration.

[@samshaw5014]

Apparently, decal is pronounced 'deckle' in Canada. www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/9ooq8f/why_do_canadians_pronounce_decal_so_differently/

[@Floatharr]

This video has omits a few very important details. - Orthographic camera size is in meters. 2.0 is exactly the size of the plane, but you'll want that to be slightly smaller because otherwise it causes artifacts at the edges of the decal. - The default color of the material is not completely white, your normal matcap is slightly darker than it should be, set viewport color to single, pure white. - Failing to untick "save as render" means your image is saved in filmic transform with dithering by default. Normalmaps are to be interpreted as data, not colors, and unticking it bypasses color management. - The default matcap has artifacts. Not enough to notice in most cases but in case that bothers you the proper way to get a perfectly clean normalmap is through a material: geometry normal -> add vector 1.0,1.0,1.0 -> vector scale 0.5 -> surface output. Then disable EEVEE effects like bloom and AO, set color management to sRGB Raw, adjust dithering as desired, and leave Save as Render ticked when saving.

[@1e1001]

Yes

[@mine_stone2495]

Yes

[@FauX358]

Thankyou for this it helped me immensely. I tested out both ways and then used the normals in Substance Painter. The videos way is full of artefacts and your way is much much cleaner.

[@sir_arsen]

how do i untick "save as render" i can't find it anywhere

[@Floatharr]

@@sir_arsen It's in the side bar of the file browser when you're saving an image. It might be hidden so you might need to expand the side bar to see it.

[@choo_choo_]

Something you missed when saving, is to make sure your color space is set to RAW, rather than filmic or anything else. Otherwise your normal map won't be as accurate because there's post processing color transforms on it. Setting it to raw fixes that.

[@JM-am-or-pm]

Can you tell me where to do this? The only place I found was in Render Settings -> Color Management --> View Transform: "Raw". But when I do that, then the image comes out blue looking instead of the normal purple color.

[@ghostriley22]

You are right,it is not accurate. If you sample(right click on image in render window), the pixels are not normalized also inconsistent values on same surface(plane)

[@mallikapatra5033]

Thanks😊 I was wondering what I did wrong

[@0x8080FF]

This is also wrong, what you want is to set view transform to "standard".

[@rohitaug]

I don't think it matters for viewport rendering. Changing the post-process settings don't seem to change anything in the viewport, only Eevee/Cycles. Unless the viewport render actually does some extra stuff behind the scenes. But why would it? The feature is just there to preview a scene, not a final render.

[@grabbitt]

excellent quality tutorial once again from You guys :)

[@cg_cookie]

Thank you, Grant!

[@pstuddy]

Wow, this is basically real-time normal map creation, very smart and intuitive!!! How come I never thought of using the normal matcaps??? You're a frickin genius man!

[@spaceman-pe5je]

I thought they were world space and not tangent normals!

[@DrunkenUFOPilot]

I have seen that matcap but never thought of a use for it. Now I know a great use for it!

[@parentheses7777]

I never realized how powerful normal maps are. Want to add a bolt to your model? Just import an image for the UV map. What?! It’s that easy!

[@thegiantguy]

Make a 4k image with multiple normal maps and bam, all the different screws/bolts etc in one image

[@coreys2686]

or just use the bolt factory add on and make it that much quicker

[@jochem_m]

@@coreys2686 and then realize that the 5000 bolts you added to your scene all have thousands of faces and now your laptop is a puddle of mildly radioactive slag instead of a usable computer.

[@spaceman-pe5je]

Well, boy, do I have the program for you... Substance Painter makes stamping on procedural normalmapped/full PBR, customizable screws of any kind a single click... As well as many many other premade normal stamps

[@Gyropilot42]

If you make some Mix Shader prioritizing the material of a second object (like a bolt) and export it, you end up with not only Normal Map but also the Color Texture and everything else of the bolt. That's really nice. Does the same Substance Painter does with even less work. Then you just go around your object CTRL+SHIFT+Ding your bolt and stamping it to the surface following normal, easy peasy

[@geoffcas]

It never would have occurred to me to use the Normal matcap in this way, and yet now it seems so obvious. True genius.

[@DocWolph]

Decal is normally pronounced "dee-cahl" in the US and most English speaking countries and regions. This is mainly because the pronunciation falls in line with words like "desaturate", "decline", "denote", "demerit" and so on as the "de" is by default pronounced "dee" and not "deh". In an often wildly inconsistent language like English, this is one of the few, if arbitrary, instances of consistency.

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

I know I'm a year late but THANK you, Doc! It's too petty for me to go on a diatribe about, but, if he was trying to cute with that pronunciation like some people do he should have stopped because it was _so annoying_! It's gotta be the stupidest one I can wreck all. Sorry, I meant 'recall'. Also, we don't need a vote. If only we had free dictionaries available online. Every single solitary one of them would probably tell you the pronunciations available. I think there's one with a difficult to remember URL like...dictionary.com or something. Who can remember that, though. I guess it saves time when making a 14 minute video. ~sigh~ There, I feel better. Good video, though. :-P Chunk! (Or is it pronounced Chuck?) Let's take a vote!

[@GaliSinatra]

In other words, desist on the deckal.

[@BourkeMedia]

Yup...dee-kal, short for decalcomania.

[@physicsteacher4569]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decalcomania

[@lamarkness]

that boolean + bevel + auto smooth trick at around 8:56 is something i needed to see! thanks for the great tutorial.

[@ChristinaMcKay]

Great tutorial. For creating the circle: you have been in the add menu anyway to set the segments. Setting the size in that menu saves the steps of scaling and then applying the scale.

[@albarnie1168]

If you have the shortcuts down then scaling regularly ends up being faster.

[@jermesastudio]

Thank you for this tutorial. It has been very helpful for my commercial projects.

[@ruivoalemao]

Best 3D tutorial I've seen in this year 👏 👏 👏

[@WaterShowsProd]

"Deckles"???? I don't think I can continue watching this...

[@Cloudyisawesome]

it was hard, but I made it through

[@jeffspinner6579]

Ty for making a default startup file with the default cube ALREADY deleted. You are my hero!

[@cg_cookie]

You have no idea how much effort went into it! - Chunck :D

[@MindblowQuotes]

Wooow! While working in Substance painter, was wondering how I can get my own Decay. Thanks a lot, CS Cookies. You are the best ever!

[@benhardwiesner6963]

Your own decay is inescapable. Just dont use drugs and eat well to keep it away for longer ^^

[@Micha-hb4gx]

Man ur a genius if i only knew about this before. Bless you for 1000 times!

[@albandejerph4264]

Brilliant trick for easily modelling normal decals

[@Alex-tn7pv]

I wouldn't have thought of this in a million years!

[@citizenclown]

DECKLE. Really? Haha. I like the content but couldn't get over the DECKLE and sound fading in and out. Thanks for sharing.

[@RevanParker]

🤣

[@creativecorner2071]

Lol omg I can’t stop laughing 😂

[@user-vo6fd6gg6i]

a little shortcut at 9:28, ctrl+spacebar sets active window to full veiw

[@tamasorvos8882]

Thank you!

[@mariusmslt7217]

INCREDIBLE

[@Alander787]

This technique is so much better than the one I've been using. This is mindblowing!

[@cg_cookie]

Happy to help out, man! Hope it speeds things up for ya. - Chunck :)

[@CZghost]

This is actually what I looked for :) Simple tutorial, and an effective method for creating normal maps for textures :)

[@-.._.-_...-_.._-..__..._.-.-.-]

Were you raised on the moon? No one on Earth has ever pronounced it deckle. Thank you for the tutorial. It was helpful.

[@ricardoviana1643]

Perfect! Love this workflow. It is really interesting how we can make a whole method just by using basics from each steps.

[@arturomendozag2308]

superb idea!

[@ambitiousgamestudio4661]

Excellent Video

[@samighasemi3333]

Nice tut👍🏻

[@Xeraclom14]

This is a life changer. thank you so much!

[@pruntyportraits]

That's amazing. I can't wait to give this a shot

[@socrates112]

Love that... This is radical. Thank you.

[@RokSlana]

Quite a few nuggets in here. Great work !

[@user-tv2fs5oh5f]

Just cool! Thanx!

[@tamasorvos8882]

Top-notch tutorial, thank you!

[@svivan20]

Amazing tutorial! Just what I was tryling to learn🔥🙌. Thank you so much 10/10

[@donovanbaine8842]

maaaaan i missed ur substance designer tutorials nice to see again

[@NOPerative]

Incredible job.

[@ivan-_-8577]

Thanks!

[@rickysargulesh1053]

Cool exactly the workflow I used for making decals.

[@jorgecastilleja5356]

Thank you, great tutorial

[@pierson9905]

I always thought that that shader in workbench was just there to look cool!

[@bimalhessa7677]

Awesome!

[@andrematthee1053]

Brilliant, you saved me.

[@mikerusby]

nice and clean, good stuff

[@Towik]

Thanks o/ May I ask why not use workbench (render engine) to render the image? it's basically the same thing but you can set a higher samples and blah blah... unless you already running maxed out viewport

[@jesuschristus2363]

Very nice tutorial!

[@juutuub0]

you covered the whole mesh. that's a texture if you ask me. isn't a decal a detail on top of the texture, like small screws at the corners of the faces? could you do that tutorial too?

[@hojaverde5265]

Very useful! Thanks

[@shinichiokazaki3705]

Awesome content

[@thomasburbage5450]

Nice tutorial! So, if we wanted to create arrays of such surface details -- rivets, screw heads, and so on, what would be the workflows for doing that? I can imagine doing that in 3D via modifiers, arraying the decal geo, but does the texture painting process in Blender facilitate that? I'm pretty sure Substance Painter can make that easy.

[@user-vo6fd6gg6i]

Exactly what I was struggling to achieve!

[@costaluca78]

Veeeeeery clever, thank you for this gem!

[@xo6731]

that was very helpfull Thanks❤

[@phuongnganinh4634]

amazing good job

[@douglawson8937]

Your name is Chunk? Like the kid in Goonies? XD awesome vid brudduh...keep up the excellent work!

[@rossknowles5608]

great stuff

[@caglayangursugokbulut9664]

thanks a lot, great tutorial

[@Keith12001]

Great video, thanks for sharing

[@Fragsteady]

Thanks for the ˈdēkal tutorial. The first vowel is long (says its name) either because it's a vowel next to another vowel separated by a consonant; or it has to do with the fact that the vowels are in distinctly separate syllables.

[@TheSebledingue]

Thank you so much, nice tuto

[@WACOMalt]

Awesome video. Side question though. I've never heard it pronounced "dehckle" before. Only "DeeKal" is that some regional thing?

[@river_brook]

Google suggests that it's a regional Canadian thing?

[@WACOMalt]

@@river_brook ah thanks! Today I learned.

[@cg_cookie]

Serious scientific investigation happening rn: kzbin.infoUgzsN_ZdCdNeJT3iqOh4AaABCQ

[@Drums712]

Excellent! Thank you Sir Decul LoL.

[@himanshudas9042]

This is black magic man

[@Hell_Inc]

13 minutes of basic modeling and when it's time to apply what you've done... " see how awesome this looks!" The End. Shader and rendering was the most important part here

[@VirtusH]

Setting up proper normals was very important IMO

[@nicolasugrinovickehdy1501]

excelent!

[@mosumartdesign]

Thanks cgcookies 👍👍👍

[@cg_cookie]

Our pleasure!

[@muhammad_mohsen]

very useful thx man

[@brahimaithamou6861]

nice, that what i want. thank you

[@hexshots1045]

I love ur channel

[@cg_cookie]

Yay! Glad you're here - Wes

[@dreamsprayanimation]

I'm going to rectify certain inequities.

[@RahzZalinto]

conveniently, ALT+R enables some NVIDIA performance overlay. Things always seem simpler until I go to do them lol.

[@megatron5538]

AWESOME~~!!

[@mlincoln7783]

Very useful. How would you do this to create specular maps, metalness maps, or other PBR maps from a mesh? Are there more matcaps for this that make it as easy as normal maps?

[@cg_cookie]

Matcaps work well for Normals, since they both rely on surface normals and camera projection angle. For other PBR maps, there are other factors that matcaps don't really account for (such as intersection, occlusion, etc.), that are needed to make solid maps. I'm not saying it's impossible, if you could manage it that would be incredibly handy, that being said I do see it as being very challenging to accomplish. -Chunck :)

[@legato3067]

really nice

[@DennisRyu]

Is there a MatCap to crate a bumpmap of this too?

[@terryrhuebottom]

Now to for me to figure out how to do this in Maya if it is possible. Awesome Content thanks a ton.

[@planesntrains5330]

This can also work for directx normal maps if you invert the green channel in photoshop.

[@locusruizlopez5997]

useful

[@pro246]

You had an issue with colliding edges when you scaled your cutter, if anyone gets this issue you can use the wield modifier to rectify it.

[@yoana2636]

What is the difference btw decals and trim sheets?

[@kevingardner7782]

The thing that I got from this tutorial apart from the work process is that I'm sure you did it in eevee and not by baking in cycles, correct ??? If so this will make it very easy to create normal maps . Well done anyway on producing an easy to follow tutorial.

[@JM-am-or-pm]

It's the Workbench renderer. But, yeah instant results... no baking required!

[@sdrawkcabdaernacuoy]

Speckle freckle decal

[@gabrielkardos4342]

Would love to be able to set the resolution

[@LoserHands]

Make sure the normal matcap isnt tinted, by changing the color to Single, and making it pure white! EDIT it prolly doesn't matter nvm me

[@Strelokos666]

Now I can see how Substance made their Hard Surface decals in Substance Painter or at least the result is quite the same. I absolutely like that normal MatCap so is there a way to bake normal with such an amazing quality presented there? If we for example using final model like a single wall and then start to modify it the way we doing in this video there's no chance to add details to a normal texture without using external soft as above-mentioned Substance Painter or Photoshop?

[@alekskroskin6101]

I still quite don't understand the difference between normal maps and decals. Is decals basically normal maps, but when you are doing them in top view perspective?

[@wickerkev]

Never in the history of ever has anyone ever pronounced decal as deckle. Cool tutorial tho

[@brandonhernandez1111]

I have a question, isn't it just a tad easier to use the workbench render engine since it seems to only render using matcaps. Maybe that's what it's meant to be used for

[@cg_cookie]

I'll be honest, I've never used the Workbench engine. So that could be a strong possibility! I will have to play around with it. -Chunck :)

[@gentlem8247]

So decals = displacement or did i get something wrong ? I'm confused

[@krystiano.610]

Decals are just textures that are later applied in engine on top of existing mesh - e.g. bullet hole in wall, sticker on car etc. They aren't applied on entire model like shown at the end of video.

[@tonygabashvili8357]

What does he have connected to the image texture and normal map at the end? Why did he leave out such critical information in a long tutorial?

[@MrHarbonaut]

This is great and really worked for me on a model, once I'd taken off the shadows and cavity render. Only problem was when I used this normal map in Substance Painter I had to load it into Photoshop and invert the Y. Is there a way to do this in the matcap?

[@The_Deaf_Aussie]

Im playing a game here.. its call Drink an alcoholic shot everytime the Video guy said "...gonna go ahead and..." Garunteed you all you be dead drunk by 8 min mark. :)

[@nibblrrr7124]

Joctor Decal & Hister Myde

[@Bugelhagen]

Реально крутой урок, спасибо!

[@santicheeks1106]

Couldnt you use mean crease instead of bevel modifier

[@hellogic1964]

Noice .

[@ValeGoG]

Спасибо :)

[@Nioki1000]

I love to bind my decal texture to null object and then place them over an object, like in Unreal.

[@chrissem5200]

Hi Why is half of my texture grey and noisy when baked. Im baking combined and colored texture. Should I bake differently if I bake a clored texture?

[@flajflaj]

Unfortunately Blender 2.8+ sucks at face orientation viewport. With 2.79 everything was visible without switching to any specified view options ;/. I wish they bring it back...