So, there was something I noticed when setting up some materials for my project. The experimental translucency lighting model released in 4.8 (surface per-pixel) reverted to the default material when used with SM4 or below. This in itself isn’t really a problem, but the ideal solution to this would be to have the game revert to the non-per-pixel surface translucency shader under these conditions. This got me thinking. I can easily create parallel materials that will work with SM4, but currently there seems to be no way to apply them.
The Feature Level Switch node in the material editor only allows access to the material nodes, not to the settings on the material. Because of this, I can’t change the lighting model based on the feature level. This wouldn’t be a problem if I could check the available feature level from blueprint, as then I could switch out the entire material.
This could allow games to support very modern features without having to worry about excluding lower end hardware, and would be a huge asset to the engine as a whole.