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Material Graph Production

Constants

Right-click to convert to Parameters

Parameters

Can be exposed for user and/or BP.

Motion 4 Way Chaos

Configuration

Search in Engine Content by Filter: Material Function
Search for motion to find Motion_4WayChaos

Distance To Nearest Surface

Workflow

Enable Project Settings > Engine > Rendering > Lighting > Generate Mesh Distance Fields

Requires Editor restart.

Access Distance To Nearest Surface node in Material.

Example

Resources

Utility Expressions

Utility Expressions nodes are nodes that can affect Materials in a number of different ways than one might be used to. For example the GIReplace node will Replace an objects indirect bounce color with a given value you input while the Linear Interpolate node will help blend between two Textures based on an Alpha input.

docs.unrealengine.com

Panner

The Panner node offers a solution to effectively animate a texture across a coordinate system. Linking time and a speed multiplier to it initiates the dynamic movement. As an example this can provide a quick and effective way of generating the illusion of smoke with a noise texture. The effect shown below was created using the settings noted below:

Example

In this example, a landscape was created and then a duplicate of the landscape was positioned a few inches higher. The landscape below was applied the landscape material and the landscape above was applied this moving cloud material.

Process

In Affinity Photo (or Photoshop), add a layer with white fill and use the Perlin Noise filter to create clouds.

The exported image does not tile well, so use Substance B2M with the following settings to process a tile-able version of the image.

Create a material with the following setup and settings:

The Opacity parameter is what controls the transparency of the texture.
Black (0) - Fully Transparent
White (255) - Fully Opaque

1st LandscapeCoords node:

2nd LandscapeCoords node:

1st Panner node:

2nd Panner node:

Material node:

Resources

Animating UV Coordinates

The ability to add motion to your Materials is a must, especially when you try to recreate effects such as fire, water, or smoke. A very cheap and effective way to do this inside Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) is to use the Panner Material Expression node.