Just a quick backstory about my Rhino mastery: I’m a self taught Rhino user (YouTube University) so I’m still fairly green relative to 99% of the forum members here. So my questions might seem rather elementary but I don’t mind getting egg on my face. It’s part of the learning process.
So here goes: What’s the difference between decal and texture mapping a surface? I wanted to apply a label to the green area on this oil canister and I could not get the texture map (jpeg file) onto the green surface to stick. On my first decal try it worked, then I changed the material on the label and it disappear. It also happened when I rotated the the green surface slightly. In the end, I just photoshopped the label onto the green surface. Tried to planer map the texture map and same result. Nothing.
Although they can seem similar. Decal is Generally:
1- Material independent
2- Depends on the Decal Widget Location, although you have a UV option, it generally ignores the object Mapping coordinates.
3- Good for Diagrams and some graphics that may need a “Color Only” raster version of information to be applied into surfaces of an object.
In another hand Textures are:
1- the building block of a Material.
2- Texture can be , Base Color, Reflection, Opacity, Bump…etc.
3- Can Follow UVW Space Directions or XYZ Spaces.
4- Essential for Visualization and Realistic output.
For your condition I suggest using Texture Mapping on the Green Surface, just use Planar Mapping and it should work fine, you can move, Rotate or scale the object without the problem, things get distorted once you edit the topology of the surface, since it will affect the UVs of the underlying mesh and can cause a problem.
Can you share the 3dm file with the texture added to a material that you want to apply to that green surface? UV mapping a.k.a texture mapping or a decal should work for that. Decals are just simpler in general but they both could be used.
