How to set up a masked Material Instance?

Auldbenkenobi

Hey guys, apologies if this is a FAQ but I need some help. I'm not great with materials in UE4 (Would like to get more competent) but I'm under a bit of a deadline and I need to know how I'd set up a material using my own Albedo map where I can change the colours of certain parts in UE4 using a material instance.

The texture in question:



I need to be able to change the colour of the Blue and Red parts of the rocket in UE4, but keep the rest (Cardboard, Logo etc) the same.

Could someone give a quick lesson here, or provide a tutorial? (Preferably a written one, video tutorials I find a bit slow and a gamble on the creators audio quality/ presentation etc.)

Thanks!

Obscura

The only thing you need is a vector parameter (and also the masks, of course...). That can be changed in an instance.

Auldbenkenobi

Could you go a little more in depth? IE, How do I set up the masks, specifically. I use Masks constantly in Photoshop but have no idea how they work in Unreal

Obscura

Sure. There are two ways for doing it, I'm explaining the easier approach here. Its Basically two linear interpolation chained up using the masks as alpha.



I baked the base of the masks from the model, so I won't need to fully paint it. Then I added some details. Like the lines on the blue part, and I added a decal too.

So there is a base color map, and its almost fully gray. Thats on the parts that you don't want to change.Also there is a colored decal on it.

Then I'm masking the first adjustable color on it, with the first lerp. Then this goes to an another lerp to get the second adjustable color based on its mask. Pretty simple, isn't it?

The another way is to use a layered material, but its not must needed in this simple case,because you want to change just 2 colors, and not whole materials, but you can take a look at it.

Auldbenkenobi

Thanks!