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Getting a line of decals to match? (ski/snowboarding/tire tracks)

Development Discussion Rendering
#1

I have a footprint system which works fine, however since each step has a little spacing between them, there’s no issue of weird overlapping.

I’m trying to create a sliding track behind the player (similar to what appears in most snowboarding/skiing games).

However the only way I know of doing that is spawning lots of square-shaped track decals. That causes issues if the player is not going in a straight line, the corners will be overlapping/not touching in every curve.

Is there some blueprint-friendly solution to this? I’m pretty sure theres a code-based solution to this in some example car-scene on the marketplace, however I was hoping there had been some more variables exposed in the blueprint system since then which hopefully made a system like this possible.

Any comment appreciated.

#2

Never tried this, but I think what you describe calls for a spline mesh…
I just once saw a neat Zak Parrish™ tutorial where he created a spline mesh road system… :slight_smile:
As far as I remember that was totally curvy and seemingly seamlessly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR0fH6O9jD8

#3

I’m just digging into trying to attempt this. What is the preferred method for creating the tracks behind tires? Which method gives best performance? Do I spawn decals or meshes? Do I just use a line trace under the wheels or feet? Or do I spawn an actual actor mesh along a spline and then destroy it? Anyone have any insight on this? I’ve searched for info on this and the info on this topic is severly lacking imo. Maybe I missed it, but in the racing project Epic provides I see the particle effects systems, meshs, and materials to create the tracks that spawn behind the buggy, but I do not see any logic in the blueprints to create them. Help Please!!!

#4

UE4 doesn’t currently support spline decals so you would either have to spawn many decals or use a spline-mesh system.

I believe some community members managed to make a spline-decal tool using the Virtual Texturing system in 4.23 so we might see spline decals as a feature in the near future.

#5

Hey, can you send me any link of that I want to try the same thing?

#6

The normal way to do tracks is to use render targets and draw them out - you can refer to any snow track tutorials for examples. The process is similar even if not using tessellation.

You create an overall “mask” and you have the material Lerp between the normal material and the track texture to color in where it should go.