Wagon wheels and footprints

[angus]

What is the recommended way of leaving ruts in the ground and hoof prints from a horse-drawn wagon?

I have experimented with decals with normal maps but it quickly gets resource-intensive.

[morbid]

Hello angus,

This can be done with decals but only with the limited number of visible footprints or ruts. How long these ruts should be? And how many footprints you expect to see simultaneously?

Thanks.

[angus]

The ruts and hoofprints of the 10 horses should live for probably 2 minutes or so as that's the scene length. There won't be that many in view as the camera will be tracking the pack.

[thomalex]

Hello angus,

The setLifeTime(float time) function is accountable for decal's life time:

DecalOrthoPtr decal = DecalOrtho::create(10.0f, 2.0f, 2.0f, "decal_base");
decal->setInitTime(Game::get()->getTime());
decal->setLifeTime(10);

In terms of the Editor, it is controlled in the decal node parameters:

Thanks.

[morbid]

Yes, it still can be done with ortho decals. Try setting a lifetime,  minimize the radius (put decals closer to the ground) and use visibility distance for them.

Thanks.

[demostenes]

16 hours ago, angus said:

The ruts and hoofprints of the 10 horses should live for probably 2 minutes or so as that's the scene length. There won't be that many in view as the camera will be tracking the pack.

Almost in any game I ve played foot decal lifetime was very short, decals were disappearing after several seconds...

[demostenes]

29 minutes ago, morbid said:

Yes, it still can be done with ortho decals. Try setting a lifetime,  minimize the radius (put decals closer to the ground) and use visibility distance for them.

Thanks.

Decal radius has effect on performance? Thats quite interesting and important information.

[morbid]

1 minute ago, demostenes said:

Decal radius has effect on performance? Thats quite interesting and important information.

Yep, the large radius can drop performance. It's always better to keep decals as close to the surface as possible.