multi Materials for a main character

salimmatta

Hey guys,

It is okay to use 2 materials for a main character ingame? (for pc)

for example: 1 material that covers the organic skin of the character and a second one for the armor only.

JordanN

If you look at this example, the character has 5 materials, and it's created using layered material.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/Materials/LayeredMaterials/

If performance is a concern, then obviously scale back on using any expensive shaders. For example, I remember there are 3 SSS functions. The SSS shading profile gives the best results but is more expensive to use, whereas the pre-integrated skin shader works fast but it is not PBR. 

Joopson

A game I worked on used 4 materials per character, if I recall. So seems to be fairly common practice to use more than 1.

I forget why we used four. I was only an environment artist, so I only saw it peripherally, but I think we had one for exposed skin (hands, face, neck, etc), one for clothes, and one for accessories (like hats, backpacks, etc), and I think the fourth was for hair.

Obscura

^Its a very common practice to use at at least 2 materials on a character. Nowadays, real time sss is available for game artists, and of course, you only want to apply it on parts with skin surface.

I'm not sure if I found it here or not, but many years ago I was looking at some character examples from old game. Like from 15 years ago. I remember one of them had like 10 materials. Which doesn't mean you should necessarily do this, but you know...

salimmatta

JordanN said:

If you look at this example, the character has 5 materials, and it's created using layered material.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/Materials/LayeredMaterials/

If performance is a concern, then obviously scale back on using any expensive shaders. For example, I remember there are 3 SSS functions. The SSS shading profile gives the best results but is more expensive to use, whereas the pre-integrated skin shader works fast but it is not PBR. 

I will try this, thanks man, btw I'm an artist not a dev, but I curious as fuck to know these technical things

salimmatta

Obscura said:

^Its a very common practice to use at at least 2 materials on a character. Nowadays, real time sss is available for game artists, and of course, you only want to apply it on parts with skin surface.

I'm not sure if I found it here or not, but many years ago I was looking at some character examples from old game. Like from 15 years ago. I remember one of them had like 10 materials. Which doesn't mean you should necessarily do this, but you know...

Thanks man, I was worried since its my first PC project as game artist, because It makes no sense to combine the armor (gonna be changed later for more skins) with the skin on the same UV map

poopipe

Find out which bits are going to need a special Shader(including alpha) ,  split those off and then you're at the mercy of texel density for the rest