Highlight Glow Material

How can I make a silhouette outline for actors? I want to make it so that some objects highlight when the mouse hovers on them. My goal is to have a material that can have the strength of the outline toggled with a param.

Forgot to mention I might want to do different variations of thicknesses and colors, so a postprocess volume wont work.

Im feeling really frustrated now. No one can help? TONS of studios do this. I need an answer please:(

First of all, be a bit patient, it only has been a few hours since you posted.

Also, the borderlands shader is not easy to recreate, and the outline neither.
Its basically the same model with the normals inverted.

How to make BORDERLANDS style CHARACTERS : a texture creation tutorial! - YouTube < whole tutorial.

Im unaccepting this not because it isnt a good answer, but because im still stuck :frowning:

could you look at this shader and explain whats going on? I followed a tutorial.

Edit

I removed the link as I found a better one. But Im so stuck trying to learn this new one its making me lose sleep.

Have you heard of this one, called the Sobel operator? it’s used for edge detection and I sort of get it but I dont understand how to implement it in Unreal.

A sobel edge effect can be obtained here: Looking for a basic Sobel Edge Post Process Material? - Asset Creation - Unreal Engine Forums

I dont know which ue4 version it uses, so you might want to read trough it all.

As for the tutorial, its a good tutorial, it works.
The outline in borderlands isnt a postproccess, its the same model, slightly resized and the normals inverted + black texture.

This tutorial can help you create a highlight material updated to Unreal Engine Version 4.17.0

This tutorial shows you how to have multiple highlight colors in your project with a single material:

Enjoy!