Layering different lighting model materials.

In Unreal 4.1 i was able to material blend different lighting models (for example subsurface and metal) by just using masks in material blending nodes. But in 4.2.1 i just cant do it anymore coz it doesn’t want to work. As soon as i change material lighting mode to subsurface i just cant blend in any other materials except subsurface. For instance if i change the lighting model to subsurface, i cant blend in metal surface function on top of skin, it doesnt’ reflect as metal, or behave like metal surface.

Did something change in this realease? Is it not possible to do that anymore?

Here’s an example of what i mean. Picture on the left has like 4 materials mixed. And 1 of them is skin with subsurface lighting model. All the others have default lighting model. Picture on the right represents subsurface mask that i have on the model.

So when i open tha same file on Unreal 4.2.1 this shader doesn’t work and everything is subsurface. And even i i make it from scratch it’s all the same.

Hi gonzamancg -

I have tried to reproduce this blending effect in 4.2 and 4.1 and have not been able to every get subsurface working. Could you post a screenshot of your material setup that is supposed to work so I can make sure I am following your workflow correctly.

Thank You

Eric Ketchum

Hi Eric,

Sure here are the screenshots, i made a new test scene with a simple sphere.

sss mat finction

metal mat function

blend layered material

Unreal viewport, left pic the shpere itself with blend shader applied, right picture - subsurface buffer visualisation.
That’s Unreal 4.1.1, and this setup doesn’t work in unreal 4.2

Want to point out the the crutial par to make that setup work is to make sure that material lighting model is set to subsurface, and subsurface mask is set up and connected to subsurface input in all of the mat functions. Otherwise it doesn’t work.

Thanks

Tony

Hi Tony -

I am moving this post into the bug report section as this is a bug. That’s for helping us track this down. I’ve entered the bug with our developers and will keep you posted on the outcome.

Thank You Again,

Eric Ketchum

thanks Eric