Adding moss/dirt to tiling textures AND texture maps in UE4?

jordank95

Hey guys. Have a question about environment art. I keep hearing people talk about using tiling textures for bigger mesh pieces since resolution becomes an issue at that point. I get that. I've used some tiling textures before. I've even blended between a few textures in UE4 for landscape materials. 

My question though, is if I wanted to add moss or dirt to an environment, is there a way to do this on non-tiled texture meshes? Let's say I have a bunch of assets that I created that all have different size texture maps applied to them (some 2k, some 512, etc.) that were made in Painter, is there a way to add dirt or moss on top of these within UE4? I basically want the ability to go over my whole environment and paint moss or dirt  where I want moss or dirt to be. 

I've heard something about using masks with tiling textures. But, where do you make these masks and how do you use them?

Thanks for your time!

Obscura

This isn't the best way to describe the difference between a tiling and a non tiling texture. They are both texture maps. The non tiling one can be called "unique" texture because its unique to your mesh uv layour. The masks can be created in Substance Painter. Look up layered material workflow with SP and UE4. There are several tutorial videos about this on youtube. This techniqe can be used to break up the tiled look on assets that goes with tiling textures. You can also achieve higher resolution look overall on an asset that would normally go with unique textures. What you would do is to have tiling materials for all layers, like metal, paint, dirt, etc, you would tile them to the size that makes sense or looks good and blend them using the masks created in SP. If its nicely done, it can be indistinguishable from a unique texture, except that this would not be limited to some texture resolution so overall it would look higher res. The quality can hold up to a unique texture easily.

But I don't think it makes much sense to blend tiling textures on top of a unique texture, unless it needs to be dynamic - like its angle dependant or something. Otherwise you can just put the dirt and moss or whatnot into the uniqe texture. Resolution would also vary then, so it might look weird. Personally if it doesn't need to be partially dynamic, it either go with a fully layered material or a fully static unique one.

jordank95

Thanks for the reply @Obscura - I have looked into this on YouTube, but I guess I haven't found the right things I'm looking for. 

Also, how would blending the tiling textures with a mask know where the dirt build up is supposed to be on a tiled textured asset? Substance bakes curvature, world space normals, etc. to be able to tell where there will be build ups. How would using a tiling texture on an asset know where to build up the dirt? Is this just done by hand?

also to touch on your other point, I personally do want to have a dynamic texture. I want the moss to react differently to angles using a unique material setup in UE4. I would want this same moss material to be on a bunch of different assets in my scene. 

Obscura

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fieYGdDEBXc