Ok so today I will be building a gold material in UE4 I will try to break down what is happening within the material editor. ( I will be working in the StarterMap in UE4 in default scene)
So first up I grabbed Unreal’s material ball and create a new material and call it M_Gold.
Instead of using a base texture I used a Constant 3 Vector, this way is I don’t like the gold base I can change it in the engine instead of going 5 steps backwards to the texture and change it in Photoshop.
For the Metallic node, I plugged in a Constant node and the value all the way to 1. What I found it is that the metallic acts like the Lambert secular in Maya it gives and overall shine but in UE4 it also has the metallic reflective. I made a constant node with a value of 0.4 plugged into roughness this gives the shine of the gold as well as the lenses flare.
Next I plugged in the normal map this give the gold the scratches and dents it usually have when you cast gold. At this stage you can pass with a gold material in a game, this next step adds more detail into the material so it doesn't look so bland.
I created the macro variation and to plug that into the base color I used a multiplier node and multiplied it with the Constant3Vector node (base color). As of right now we see allot of detail with the macro variation, so now we are going to tone down the variation.
With another Constant3Vector i plugged the macro variation texture into the alpha of the lerp, this is now controlling the opacity of the variation. I used the constant 3 vector like a opacity map, black = 100% opacity and white is 0 % opacity, I put it at 63% opacity.
So there you have it a basic Gold Material built in UE4 :D
So first up I grabbed Unreal’s material ball and create a new material and call it M_Gold.
Instead of using a base texture I used a Constant 3 Vector, this way is I don’t like the gold base I can change it in the engine instead of going 5 steps backwards to the texture and change it in Photoshop.
For the Metallic node, I plugged in a Constant node and the value all the way to 1. What I found it is that the metallic acts like the Lambert secular in Maya it gives and overall shine but in UE4 it also has the metallic reflective. I made a constant node with a value of 0.4 plugged into roughness this gives the shine of the gold as well as the lenses flare.
Next I plugged in the normal map this give the gold the scratches and dents it usually have when you cast gold. At this stage you can pass with a gold material in a game, this next step adds more detail into the material so it doesn't look so bland.
I created the macro variation and to plug that into the base color I used a multiplier node and multiplied it with the Constant3Vector node (base color). As of right now we see allot of detail with the macro variation, so now we are going to tone down the variation.
With another Constant3Vector i plugged the macro variation texture into the alpha of the lerp, this is now controlling the opacity of the variation. I used the constant 3 vector like a opacity map, black = 100% opacity and white is 0 % opacity, I put it at 63% opacity.
So there you have it a basic Gold Material built in UE4 :D