Mastering Technical Art in the Unreal Engine Materials and VFX

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Author Biographies
1. What is Technical Art
	Introduction to Technical Art
	What Do Technical Artists Do?
		Communication is Key
	What Software Should I Learn?
	What Skills Should a Technical Artist Have?
	How Does a Technical Artist Fit into a Development Team?
	What Fields Are There Within Technical Art?
	Conclusion
	Chapter 1 Quiz
		Answers
2. An Artist’s Guide to the Rendering Pipeline
	Introduction
	Introduction to the Rendering Pipelines in Unreal Engine
		Strengths of Deferred Rendering
		Weakness of Deferred Rendering
	Physically Based Rendering
	Areas for Optimization
		Draw Calls
		Shader Complexity
		Overdraw
		Memory
		Unreal GPU Profiling
	Conclusion
	Chapter 2 Quiz
		Answers
3. What Are Materials?
	Introduction to Materials
	Material Resources
		Textures
		Texture Types
		Texture Formats and Compression
		Texture Sizes
		UVW Coordinates
		Texture Settings in Unreal Engine
	Material Uses and Material Domains
	Blend Modes and Shading Models
		Blend Modes
		Shading Models
	Conclusion
	Chapter 3 Quiz
		Answers
4. Creating Your First Material
	Getting Started with the Project Files
		Installing Unreal Engine
		Extracting the Project
		Opening the Project
		Exploring the Project
	Creating a New Material Asset
	Introduction to the Material Editor
	Introduction to the Material Graph
	Adding Textures to the Material
		Base Color Texture
		Normal Map Texture
		Merged (ORM) Map Texture
	Conclusion
	Chapter 4 Quiz
		Answers
5. Material Instances
	What Are Material Instances?
	Constants vs Parameters
	Setting up Texture Parameters
	Material Math
		Add Operations
		Multiply Operations
		Linear Interpolation (Lerp) Operations
	Adding a Color Tint to the Material
	Controlling the Roughness Values
	Comments and Reroute Nodes
	Conclusion
	Chapter 5 Quiz
		Answers
6. Master Materials
	An Introduction to Master Materials
	Designing Materials for Others
		Duplicating the Roughness Controls
		Renaming the Nodes
		Sorting and Ordering the Parameters
		Connecting in the Metallic Controls
		Adding Specular Control
	Building a Master Material for Tiling
		Adding in a Detail Normal Map
	Additional Master Materials
		Creating the Emissive Master Material
		Creating the Subsurface Master Material
		Creating the Translucent Master
		Creating a Thin Translucent Master
		Creating the Spider Web Material
	Creating the Material Instances
		M_BaseMaster
		M_EmissiveMaster
		M_TilingMaster
		M_TranslucentMaster
		M_ThinTranslucentMaster
		M_SubsurfaceMaster
	Conclusion
	Chapter 6 Quiz
		Answers
7. Mesh Painting and Materials
	What is Mesh Painting?
	Materials and Vertex Color
		Building the Material
	Mesh Paint Workflow
	Improving the Material
		Additional Blends
		Separate PBR Controls Per Layer
	Bonus: Decals
		Dirt Decals
		Book Text Decal
	Conclusion
	Chapter 7 Quiz
		Answers
8. Introductory Materials for VFX
	Introduction
	Blend Modes
		Creating Our Translucent VFX Master Material
		Creating Our Additive VFX Master Material
	Shading Models
		Setting the Shading Model on Our Translucent Master Material
		Setting the Shading Model on Our Additive Master Material
	Particle Color
		Utilizing Particle Color in Our Translucent Master Material
		Adding Particle Color to Our Additive Master Material
		Parameters
			Panning and UV Distortion
			Adding Panning to Our Additive Master Material
			Tinting VFX Materials with Scalar and Vector Parameters
			Eroding Opacity with Dynamic Parameters
			Eroding Our Translucent VFX Master – Value Step
			Eroding Our Translucent VFX Master – Smooth Step
	Conclusion
	Chapter 8 Quiz
		Answers
9. Introduction to Niagara and VFX in Unreal Engine
	Introduction
	What is Niagara?
	Introduction to Niagara Systems
		Creating the DeskSmoke System Asset
		Creating the Configuring System Asset
	Introduction to Niagara Emitters
		Emitter Properties
		Emitter Summary
		Emitter Spawn
		Emitter Update
		Particle Spawn
		Particle Update
		Render
		Creating the Our Niagara Emitter
		Niagara Basic Templates
	Conclusion
	Chapter 9 Quiz
		Answers
10. Creating the Energy Orb
	Introduction
	The Energy Orb Materials
	The Energy Orb
		The Energy Storm Emitter
		The Orbiting Emitter
		Energy Orb System
	Conclusion
	Chapter 10 Quiz
		Answers
11. Creating Our Sparking Cauldron
	Introduction
	The Cauldron
		The Cauldron Bubbles Emitter
		The Cauldron Sparks Emitter
		The Cauldron System 1
		The Cauldron Sizzle Emitter
		The Cauldron System 2
	Conclusion
	Chapter 11 Quiz
		Answers
12. The Dawn of Fire
	Introduction
	Sub UV Materials
	Flames
		Flames – Sub UV Emitter
		Background Flames – Sub UV Emitter
		Flames Embers – Emitter
		Flames Smoke – Sub UV Emitter
		Flames System
	Conclusion
	Chapter 12 Quiz
		Answers
13. Magical Spells and Fireworks
	Introduction
	Magic Spell
		Magic Spell – Beam Emitter
		Magic Spell – Sparkling Emitter
		Magic Spell – Energy Charge Emitter
		Magic Spell – Energy Charge Blast Emitter
		Magic Spell – Energy Charge Ring Emitter
		Magic Spell System
		Magic Spell – Attaching System Assets
	Fireworks
		Fireworks – Head Emitter
		Fireworks – Trail Emitter
		Fireworks – System 1
		Fireworks – Bang Emitter
		Fireworks – Radial Emitter
		Fireworks – System 2
	Conclusion
	Chapter 13 Quiz
		Answers
14. The Waterfall
	Introduction
	Waterfall Flowing Water
		Flowing Water Meshes
		Animated Flowing Water Material
	Waterfall Splash Effect
		Waterfall Splash Material
		Waterfall Splash System
		Waterfall Splash Material 2
	Waterfall Foam Effect
		Water Foam Material
		Water Foam System
	Conclusion
	Chapter 14 Quiz
		Answers
15. The Fire Tornado
	Introduction
	Rock Meshes
		Rock Meshes
		Lava Material
		Linear VFX Distortion Material
		Radial VFX Distortion Material
	Fire Tornado System
		Spawning the Rock Particles
		Spawning the Fire Particles
		Spawning the Orbiting Ribbons
	Conclusion
	Chapter 15 Quiz
		Answers
Index