What is a decal? How stickers work on 3D clothing

How a sticker on the outfit gets cut into puzzle pieces on the sheet, and why you never have to do it yourself.

Explainer

3 min read

Updated

Stickers

A decal is a sticker that has been fitted to a 3D outfit. Putting a sticker on an outfit sounds easy. It isn't, and the reason is the flat sheet from the UV map guide. This one explains the trick that makes it look easy.

Why you can't just slap a sticker on the sheet

Remember the Tetris sheet? Since the UV map is scattered into pieces, a logo placed on the chest of the sheet would get chopped up and land in the wrong places on the outfit.

For a sticker to look normal on the 3D surface, it has to be cut into puzzle pieces and scattered around the texture, following the UV map. Once the sheet is wrapped back on the outfit, the pieces line up again.

So what is a decal?

For you it's simply a sticker. This is all you do:

Any sticker you like.

One star sticker on the jacket is split across the pieces of the flat sheet
One star sticker on the jacket is split across the pieces of the flat sheet

Decals in the studio

In our studio

Decals

You never touch the puzzle pieces. Pick a decal, place it on the outfit like a sticker, and the studio does the translation to the sheet for you.

What to remember

Tick each one when it clicks.

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