Custom Decals not showing up when rendering with Raytracing

[_DanSolo_]

Anyone else have this problem, custom made decals are applied and visible, but fail to show up correctly with a "Ray Tracing" visual style. other rendering methods like "Both Shadows" have no issue displaying correctly.

In these two examples both renderings show blue stripe decals perfectly. The blue stripes are default Showcase "stripe" decals....and they seem to have no issue showing up in either visual style. But my custom "Systems" decal seems to not maintain correct visibility. I have not found yet out where I am going wrong here.

Any Ideas.

[cikho]

for me it always worked..

you may also notice that the "systems" in the raytrace it's actually visible, maybe there's some wrong material setting..
small questions:
how are the blue striped applied? is it a material with white/blue texture? is it a blue material with white stripes applied as decal (or vice versa)?

the "systems" decal has 2 textures applied, one of which is not useful.. if you use a black&white mask with the "systems" type, than the material color can just be blue without the "system" texture as material color.

it also look you're using the same texture for both, please remember that decal masks has to be black & white or, at least, greyscale.

what's the texture's format? maybe it has some transparency information that makes confusion

[admaiora]

Can you attach a little test scene? (cylinder with the decals, all zipped)

The solution will be quicker.

[_DanSolo_]

attached to the post is a large screen grab with my settings for the decal.

I will try to upload a small test scean too.

[_DanSolo_]

I attached a test scene with a logo that is half black and white and half color.

I have a feeling that my problem is that I am simply not setting up my decals properly. I notice that the black portion of the logo no longer remains black when it becomes a decal. And as per the above example with the "systems" decal, it disappears almost entirely when switched to raytracing.

[_DanSolo_]

the blue strip is just a predifiend decal within the Showcase 2015 material library. All I did was adjust the color.

And on my custom "systems" decal, I thought I had more or less matched the settings of the Showcase stripe decal.

[sam_m · Accepted solution]

I think your decal is setup wrongly.

Within the decal properties the top section is the shape/mask of the decal.  You had had this ticked as "use file" - so I think it couldn't understand what shape you wanted for the decal, so didn't know what to render.  changing this to the background colour fixed it here.  Saying this, if I wanted a shaped decal I've tended to save it with an alpha layer from a paint program to define this (and use the middle tick-box), to control it a little better.

[_DanSolo_]

yep! I figured it was user error

Thanks so much!, I will try this.

[admaiora]

Sorry to be late and redundant..

i will post it anyway ....it was already in uploading phase...

[nmgmarques]

I don't get it. I created a alpha with black background and transparent decal space. Created also the decal file with only the decal and the background cropped out. I placed the black alpha as the Decal and set the [Use alpha from "Decal" image file]. For Color I selected the decal with transparent BG and set use image file. Still no joy. I even tried a black background with white for the decal file as alpha. What am I missing?

I can't seem to link to YouTube videos so here is the direct link to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpUU1a4_PVw

[admaiora]

Can you attach the scene?

[nmgmarques]

Here you go.

[admaiora]

Hello Marques,

look at this, it should helps you.

[nmgmarques]

So if I understood correctly, I can only apply the decal to the top most object? In your video it almost seems as if the decal is at the bottom of the top sheet of plastic. I can't get that same result and moving the texture doesn't seem to shift it any lower. In any acse, now that it's on top, it shows. Just not as I wished. I was really hopping I could apply it to the name plate between the sheets of clear plastic.

[admaiora]

No.

Delete your decal, then assign a new decal choosing the decal material as image.

Then just in the video, all will works fine.

[nmgmarques]

I think I got it working. I don't know what I was doing wrong. I was using one of the preset autodesk logo decals but using the flame decal worked. Then, replaced it with my decals and now I can see the image through the plastic layers. I can also move the decal up and down a layer. Trying again with the Autodesk decal the image won't show. In any case, it's solved now thanks to your help. Kudos!