UE5 Decals that darken the color underneath?

Development Rendering
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1

I’m trying to create a water puddle decal in UE5. One key component is this decal can darken the color underneath this decal instead of replacing it with a single color. Any idea or pointers on how to do this?

I tried to use the SceneTexture node but to throws the error “[SM5] (Node SceneTexture) Decals can only access SceneDepth, CustomDepth, CustomStencil, and WorldNormal.”

2

Have you seen this?

You can drop the decal on something and make it looks like it’s wet…

3

Sometimes just reducing the roughness to close to zero can give you that darkened effect (or reflective) - using something like the DBuffer Translucent Roughness Blend mode…

4

Thanks! I think I’ve seen this a while back. It uses lower opacity to overlay a black decal which works great, but I have normals plugged too for ripples in this decal, and lowering the opacity softens those ripples too.

I had a custom node working in UE4 accessing the gbuffer to get the base color, but switching to UE5 now the custom node just returns (0, 0, 0).

5

Thanks, but UE5 removed the decal blend mode entirely :pensive:

6

Hmm, maybe single layer water shader might do it…

7

What do you mean by “single layer water shader”? Like using a mesh instead of decal?

8

Right, UE5. I did have a quick play and just not connecting the Diffuse kind of gave the same result.

9

Yes, bit more of a pain…

10

Hmm I just tried it and when looking at it straight on it’s hard to see any effect. When looking at an angle I can get the reflection but I hope to see some darker colors too. What does yours look like?

11

Never knew about this, thanks! Looks like a lot of reading haha

12

:slight_smile:

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13

I’d added a metallic of 1 as well:

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image1351×667 48 KB

If you’re wanting a lot of puddles it can be much more optimal to build them into the materials themselves (that way it’s much easier to adjust the diffuse too).

I’ve got a tutorial and free material blueprints that do that at: (about 1/3 down the page)

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14

The metallic did the trick! And yeah building it in the material would be a better option but we’ve already been using the decal workflow and it broke when we switched to UE5, that’s why I’m looking for a decal solution to this.

Anyways, thanks for your help!!!

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