It seems that there are some cases where you want the projections to be live, like an actual projector or circle around a character’s feet, and there are cases when you want it projected on permanently, possibly a scuff mark on a car after it hits a guard rail or graffiti on a wall.
There also seem to be a lot of need for filtering object out of the cast, via whitelist or blacklist. You only want to character’s circle projection to be on the static geometry, and not ontop of other characters or intractable elements of the map.
Its not quite the same; But the bullet hole thing was something I was interested in by too.
It annoys me when the bullet hole extends outside of the object.
so I made this; https://www.roblox.com/library/417168585/Decal-API
Its a little module that allows images to wrap around edges.
Although, it only works on single objects and only on basic parts and uses SurfaceGuis to position the images.
If you want an example of its application, My game Brutal and the Rolve game Unit 1968 uses it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfxjV3NEfxY
and it works at a fairly low cost; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5zwh5gXWSU
however it has serious limitations;
Any shape thats more complex than having 90* angles is almost incompatable,
It will only work on two sides max, applying it on a corner will simply post it on one or two surfaces
due to rotated guis not being able to be culled, the top and bottom faces will not wrap in any case.
This isn’t quite what @Vorlias is after though, as it doesn’t work on terrain or curved/multiple parts.
Having a feature that allows for this would be incredible in its potential, from a gameplay and building perspective.
I’d use this for unit selection spheres projected onto the ground, blood splatter, paint splatter, bulletholes / explosion decals. These are a few that came into mind
If this becomes a thing, the automatic anti-aliasing that roblox does on images needs to be dealt with, but beyond that, I’m in support of it.
As an aside, I don’t think this being an extension of the decal object would be ideal, simply because it wouldn’t allow for as much customization compared to using GUIs, but either (or both!) would work.
I really hope this has been considered - there’s so many use cases and I can see myself using it a lot also. For me, I’d probably be using it in my game for ability targets on the ground like so:
Yes, I definitely support having a projection feature that allows one to project an image over terrain. There are many use cases, and the one I had in mind was showing a spell effect on the ground, or the radius of spell on the ground.
In case you guys haven’t seen what you can do with the Future is Bright ShadowMap mode, you can create some awesome effects such as Gobos, Shutters, and so much more.
Example of a Gobo:
The base of this has got to be super close to how a surface projection should work.
I would use projective decals to make customizable and animated avatar faces. Right now, the most I can do to customize an avatar’s face is parent multiple decals to the head, resulting in predefined facial proportions. With a feature like this, I would be able to allow varying facial proportions, both for customization in a player avatar editor, and for variety in randomly generated NPCs. Nintendo’s Mii editor is an existing example of this functionality.
I would use projective decals to allow players to customize their gear. For example, players could put decals on their cars and weapons. Black Ops 3’s Paintshop is a great example where players can place decals on their guns at locations of their choosing.
Others mentioned projective decals would be useful for bullet holes. I would use a feature like this for any kind of damage to a MeshPart in general. For example, dents, scratches, and cracked glass on cars in the specific location of impact:
the second example you give there is currently impossible to do with what we have access to, without making hundreds of decals for individual parts.
Even if something like decals were updated to respect a position, rotation and size it would be a huge step towards this.
Maybe instead of an ignore list, there could be an include list? It seems there would be quite a few things to ignore and less things to consider or perhaps that could be an argument/parameter.
This might actually be very useful for creating roads. At the moment, it’s sometimes hard to line up parts with the terrain, but this way we’ll be able to make more curvy, less “static” roads that have lots of bumps and things that can put a car’s suspension to the test.
or perhaps that could be an argument/parameter.
