[Question] Character textures customization and layered materials

Development Rendering
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1

Hi,

In the topic of character customization implementations (for NPCs variations), for customizing textures, using layered materials for scars, tatoos, beards etc… Any recommended approach and workflow?

Thanks in advance,

2

Whether you are placing NPCs in the world or spawning them at runtime, I highly recommend you research and implement Material Instance Constants.

#Material Instance Constants

You set up a material, and all material layers within that material, and then you convert various parts of the material into parameters.

Then you make Material Instance Constants of that original material and vary the settings.

In this way you can quickly create a large variety of similar but distinct materials to then apply to your characters’ meshes whether they are placed in the world or spawned at runtime.

You can setup material instance parameters for portions of material layers, within a material, which I think is really awesome :slight_smile:

UDN UE4 Documentation on Material Instances

https://rocket.unrealengine.com/docs/ue4/INT/Engine/Subsystems/Rendering/MaterialsAndTextures/Materials/MaterialInstances/index.html

Rama

3

Thanks for all the info, Rama!
I’ll read the page in the link.

Thanks again.