Trick to select all decals?

[Springheel]

I know I can filter decals out of a scene, but is there any way I can select all the decals in an area without having to do it one by one?

[RJFerret]

Filter everything except for decals, then select the decals en masse.

 

If you expect to want to select that group again in the future, add them to a unique layer.

[Bikerdude]

You could use a brut force method by hiding entities and brushes, leaving the patches and decals, then just select the decals. But this would only work if all the decals you want to select aren't FS. [got ninja'd by Ferret]

[AluminumHaste]

Put all decals on one layer using the layer manager. Then you can just click the layer button to select them.

[Springheel]

Before I bother, does converting them to fs help stop them from popping in front of things as you walk away from them?

[Moonbo]

Sadly, I don't think it does.

[nbohr1more]

The popping is from their sort order I believe. Sometimes the engine doesn't know what is in front of what. You might be able to force specific decals to work differently by making a new material def with a hard coded sort value. Similar to how rebb fixed grayman's waterfall issue.

[Bikerdude]

Before I bother, does converting them to fs help stop them from popping in front of things as you walk away from them?

That only seems to effect some decals and the only work around is to move said decal away the surface of a brush by 1 unit.

[Springheel]

The issue is dirt decals on walls that pop in front of windows that already stick out several units from the wall. The decal should not draw in front of the window, but when you get a certain distance away, it does.

[Sotha]

Yep, I've noticed that in the past. There is no cure, I'm afraid.

[grayman]

I thought that was attributed to floating point problems in the z-buffer.

[Springheel]

Yep, I've noticed that in the past. There is no cure, I'm afraid.

 

What about turning them into models? I notice that when I add decals as part of a .lwo model, the popping doesn't occur. Have you tried exporting the decals as an .ase?

[rebb]

Is said dirt-decal material using the "DECAL_MACRO" keyword ?

 

Might be worth a try to remove this and instead use the equivalent keywords that it stands for, but with a lower polygonOffset value, which is 1 in DECAL_MACRO.

 

Something like the following, but experimenting a bit until you find a good polygonOffset value between 0 and 1 that works for the scene.

 

polygonOffset 0.75 // this is 1 in DECAL_MACRO
discrete
sort decal
noShadows