How to Fix Decals Stretching on Curved or Angled Surfaces

Decal stretching on curves is the projection hitting steep surfaces. Limiting the angle fixes it. Here is how.

How to fix it

1. Limit the projection angle

Set a fade or cutoff angle so the decal does not apply to surfaces facing too far from the projection direction. This stops the smearing on slopes and perpendicular walls where a projected decal stretches.

2. Use mesh decals on complex geometry

For decals on curved or detailed surfaces, mesh decals (geometry conforming to the surface) avoid the stretching that box-projected decals suffer. Use them where projection cannot conform cleanly.

3. Orient the projection

Project the decal along the surface normal where you place it, rather than a fixed world direction, so it applies straight onto the surface. A projection misaligned with the surface is what stretches the decal.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.