Adding a Decal Controller

Owned by DEVOPS
Oct 05, 2021
2 min read
In marine scenarios, you can add a texture that is rendered on top of the ocean mesh.

This texture, called a decal, follows the ocean waves.

To add a decal:

  1. Select Marine in the Toolbox.
  2. Double-click Decal to add it, or drag it to the desired location in the Explorer panel.

In the Properties panel, configure the following fields:

  • Visible: Select this box to have the decal appear.
  • Alpha: Adjusts the transparency of the decal.
  • UV Offset: Shifts the placement of the texture on the decal in two dimensions, causing the texture to repeat.
  • Animation: Selects how to control the animation of the decal. There are three categories that control how to animate a decal: Alpha (animates transparency), UV (animates offset), and Scale (animates proportions). Increasing the Size field adds an animation cycle to the selected category.
    Within each animation category, you can configure the following fields:
    • Initial value: Specifies the initial values for the selected category (e.g., in Scale, these values set the initial proportions of the decal).
    • End value: Specifies the final values for the selected category.
    • Interpolation type: Selects the way the above values progress over time. The choices are Linear (real-time progression), QuadraticIn (faster toward the start of the animation), and QuadraticOut (faster toward the end of the animation).
    • Repeat count: Specifies the number of times the animation repeats. A value of -1 represents infinite repetition.
    • Start time: Specifies how many seconds into the scene the animation begins.
    • Animation length: Specifies the total time of the animation, in seconds, including the start time. I.e., if the animation length is 10 and the start time is 1, the animation will begin after a delay of one second and run for nine seconds.
    • Animation end time: Specifies the cutoff point of the animation, in seconds.
    • Play: When you check this box, the animation begins (useful to debug an animation).
    • Current time: Specifies the current time of the animation, in seconds.
  • Texture: Selects the decal image file.
  • Additive blending: Selecting this option allows some of the underlying ocean effects to blend through the decal.
  • Infinite: Checking this box infinitely renders the decal, instead of limiting its size specified by the local transform.

Warning In cases where the viewport is larger than 2048 pixels in height and width, the viewport becomes larger than the depth buffer used to create volumetric decals (whose default buffer size is 2048 x 2048). To use a larger screen, change the depth-texture-size parameter found in the Triton.config file located in your Vortex® Studio installation folder, under /resources/triton. It is recommended to use power of two values (i.e., 2n, where n is an integer) for the depth texture size.

Below are some examples of screen resolution as it relates to depth texture size:

Resolution Standard Resolution

Depth Texture Size

HD 1920 x 1080 2048

2K 2048 x 1080 2048 or 4096

4K 3840 x 2160 4096

8K 7680 x 4320 8192