Mixer metallic material looks glossy and lacks detail in UE4
CompletedHello everyone! I have created a metallic material with imperfection in Mixer for a UE4 project. The material looks great when applied to the mesh within Mixer but once I import it in Unreal Engine the imperfections become invisible or extremely faint and the metal looks almost like painted glass. It's way too glossy and way too dark (even for its dark color). I have looked everywhere and tried many different metalness-roughness configurations but nothing solves this. Here are images of the model in both programs:
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I'll need to see your material setup to be able to assist here, CeDh, along with knowing what the albedo color is for the metallic aspect of this material.
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Thank you for your response. Here is the setup and the albedo for the two metals that look wrong in UE4:
Setup: https://i.imgur.com/z2zwj8G.png
Albedo of central blue ring: 0x010444
Albedo of dark metal: 0x363638
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Sorry, my bad.
Setup: https://i.imgur.com/XHet5b0.png
Albedo of central blue ring: R: 1 G: 4 B: 68
Albedo of dark metal: R: 54 G: 54 B: 56
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Part of the problem here is that you're using a Specular map. Specular maps do not have any effect on metallic surfaces. In UE, Specular functions as an Index of Refraction control for non-metallic surfaces - e.g. it limits the amount of light being reflected by a surface. You could create a vantablack surface in UE using a black specular value, as an example. It would reflect almost no light back whatsoever. The first thing you'll want to do is disconnect the Specular map. Second, you'll want to disable sRGB on everything but your Albedo map. All non-Albedo maps should be processed in Linear space by the engine in order to render appropriately.
I'm also not sure why you have a texture map applied to your WPO - perhaps for displacement - but a proper displacement setup requires more than a single texture hookup. -
Thank you very much for your help. It looks so much better now!
Could you also tell me what a proper displacement setup is or could you point me towards any resources that explain it in detail? I looked and I found a lot of images of displacement setups but no articles that explain what each component contributes and how to create your own setup.
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https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Resources/ContentExamples/MaterialNodes/1_11/index.html
This should help you get started in the right direction! -
It doesn't need to be, but it can add a stylistic flair to the work you're creating. You can also reduce washout by controlled specular usage. I covered this in my latest writeup: https://80.lv/articles/building-pine-flatwoods-in-ue4/
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