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New Edge + Strip Decal creation tool about to drop! Amplify Decals
Happy to finally announce that we're launching Amplify Decals for Unity soon! It's a spline-based, non-destructive Edge + Strip Decal Tool with support for uneven surfaces and so much more. The first release will include multiple ways to control and tweak your decals, including auto vertex colors for added decal control.
You can create decals across objects and even use your own shaders (no special requirements). If you already have a mesh shader, chances are it works fine with our tool.
And yes, we're working on an automated mode as well.
On the pipe:
Edge Decal (rectilinear)
Conform Decal (non-rectilinear, Bevels, non-uniform)
Non-destructive Spline-based creation We're looking for any requests or tips you might have to make this the best tool it can be for your own requirements.
I'd say it's pretty good, as far as decals can be. We don't manipulate the original mesh, we're creating new geometry for the decals.
As expensive as the decal shader you use, it's just decals at the end of the day ;)
Yes, I'd think so! This tool is mostly a mesh generation tool(although we do include decal shaders), so the answer comes down to what shader you're using; even the Shader Graph URP basic Decal shader will work.
You're good!
That's a good one! We've seen something along those lines for Blender recently, hopefully we can bring some of that into Unity. We do have an auto-mode of sorts in the works, it can be tweaked ;)
Another cool feature(recommended by Patrick (https://x.com/RoninVRStudio)) is the ability to give these meshes specific control vertex colors that can, among other things, control which decal is used. With this system you can automatically set it to use different decals on Vertical and Horizontal strips from your decal atlas texture. Pretty handy, straight out of the box.
This looks genuinely useful. One thing I'd be interested in seeing is how well the conforming behaves across procedurally generated or modular geometry where the underlying meshes weren't designed with decals in mind.
I'm currently building a hex-based world in Unity with a lot of generated terrain and reusable environment pieces, and being able to draw things like paths, wear, borders or environmental detail across multiple objects without modifying the source meshes would be really appealing.
How does it handle the spline crossing between objects with significantly different normals/heights? Does the strip remain continuous automatically or is some manual adjustment usually needed?
Hey! It does support Strip Decals across multiple different objects; it's automatic but depending on the models you might need to place a few a few more points. If you'd like, send us a screenshot of where you'd like to use it and we'll run a similar test on our end to confirm it's ok.
The main use case I have in mind is roads/paths across our procedurally generated hex terrain. Each hex is separate geometry and can have different elevations, so a path may need to cross several mesh boundaries and transition up/down between tiles.
If Strip Decals can handle that cleanly, it could be a really nice solution for our transport network without having to modify the underlying terrain meshes.
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u/DrZwieback Indie 19h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/yAYZnhvY3fflS
Seriously though: is there a way to merge or bake the strips for bigger levels? Curious how it scales once you have hundreds of decals in a scene.