Advanced Triplanar Material - User Guide

Chapter 1: Installation

1.1 Transforming to Project

Step 1: Open the Advanced Tri-planar Material Project

• Launch Unreal Engine and open the project that contains the Advanced Tri-planar Material.

Step 2: Locating the Advanced Tri-planar Material Folder

• In the Content Browser, navigate to the Content folder where the "AdvancedTriplanarMaterial" folder is located.
• Right-click on the "AdvancedTriplanarMaterial" folder.
• Select the Migrate option from the dropdown menu.

Note: Unreal Engine will display a list of all the assets related to the material. Ensure that all necessary files are selected (by default, all required files should be selected).

• Click OK to proceed with the migration.

Step 3: Navigating to the Destination Project

• A new window will pop up, asking for the destination project.
• Navigate to the Content folder of your target project (for example, the Disclamation Project).
• Select the Content folder and click Select Folder.
• Unreal Engine will migrate the Advanced Tri-planar Projection Material and all associated assets to your target project.

1.2 Enable Required Plugins

Step 1: Access the Plugin Tab

• Open your target project in Unreal Engine.
• Click on Edit in the top-left corner of the Unreal Editor window.
• From the dropdown menu, select Plugins to open the plugin tab.

Step 2: Search for and Enable Required Plugins

• In the Plugins window, use the search bar at the top to look for the required plugins:
  • Modeling Tools Editor Mode
  • Static Mesh Editor Modeling Mode
• Ensure that both plugins are enabled (a checkbox will be available next to each plugin).
• If these plugins are not enabled, click the checkbox to enable them.
• Restart Unreal Engine if prompted to apply the changes.

1.3 Enabling Nanite Tessellation

Step 1: Close Your Project

• Ensure that your Unreal Engine project is closed before proceeding.

Step 2: Locate the Config Folder

• Navigate to the folder where your Unreal Engine project is saved.
• Inside the project folder, find the Config folder.

Step 3: Edit the DefaultEngine File

• Open the DefaultEngine.ini file located inside the Config folder.

Step 4: Add Nanite Tessellation Settings

• Scroll down or search for the section labeled:
  [/Script/Engine.RendererSettings]
• Under this section, add the following two lines:
  r.Nanite.AllowTessellation=1
r.Nanite.Tessellation=1

Step 5: Save the File

• After adding the lines, save the DefaultEngine.ini file.

Step 6: Reopen Your Project

• Once the changes are saved, reopen your project in Unreal Engine. Nanite tessellation will now be enabled.Advanced Triplanar Projection Material - User Guide

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Chapter 2: Using the Material

2.1 Making Instance

Step 1: Navigate to the Master Folder

• Open your project in Unreal Engine.
• In the Content Browser, navigate to the Master folder "AdvanceTriplanarMaterial/Materials/Masters".

Step 2: Create a Material Instance

• Right-click on the M_AdvanceMaterial (the master material).
• From the context menu, select Create Material Instance. This will create an instance version of the material, allowing you to tweak parameters without altering the original master material.

Step 3: Move the Instance to Your Desired Location

• Once the material instance is created, move it to the desired folder where you want to store it (for example, a folder specific to your scene or asset).

2.2 Enabling Nanite for objects

Step 1: Nanite document

• Make sure your object meets the requirements to enable Nanite (Nanite_Document)

Step 2: Enabling nanite

• Open up the object
• Look for Nanite settings tab inside the details panels enable the "Enable nanite support"

  

  
  

2.3 Enabling or disable Tri-planar Projection

Step 1: Open the Material Instance

• After creating your material instance, open it by double-clicking on the material instance file in your desired folder.

Step 2: Enable Tri-planar Projection

• Inside the material instance editor, navigate to the 00_General section. You will find a checkbox labeled "Use TriplanarProjection".
• Enabling this checkbox will ignore the UVs of the object and apply tri-planar projection onto the object from all three axes.

Step 3: Adjusting Blend Sharpness (available only when tri-planar projection is enabled)

• Below the Use Tri-planar Projection checkbox, there will be a parameter labeled "Blend Sharpness".
• Increasing this value will sharpen the edges of the projection, making the transitions between the projections more defined.
• Reducing this value will smooth the edges, allowing for softer transitions between the projections.

2.3 Change Texture

Note: By default, only one material is enabled. This material will act as the base, and additional materials, based on the order they are added, will be applied on top of the base material. By going to the "01_Blend Material" section and enabling the "Blend A&B" checkbox, you will add an additional material group. To add a third material, check the "Blend A/B & C" checkbox, which will enable another material group. Finally, to add the fourth material, enable the "Blend A/B/C & D" checkbox, which will add the fourth material group.

Step 1: Use ARD

• The first parameter in each material section (e.g., 02_Material A) is "Used ARD". Used ARD refers to how Quixel-Bridge packs the textures into three combined maps: Albedo, Normal, and ARD (which stands for Ambient Occlusion, Roughness, and Displacement in a single map), By default, Used ARD is selected.If you prefer to use separate maps for each type of texture, disable the Used ARD checkbox. Once disabled, individual input slots for different types of maps will appear, allowing you to customize:
  • Albedo (Base Color)
  • Roughness
  • Normal
  • Ambient Occlusion
  • Displacement

Step 2: Metallic

• By default, the material does not use a metallic texture. To enable metallic textures, simply check the "Use Metallic Map" option, and a socket will appear for applying your metallic map.

Step 3: Adjusting the Texture

• Each texture map (e.g., Albedo, Roughness, Normal) can be further controlled by adjusting parameters such as Scale, Offset, Contrast, Tint, and more to fit your project’s specific needs.

Chapter 3: Vertex paint

Step 1: Apply the Material

• Apply the material to your mesh by selecting the mesh and assigning the Advanced Triplanar Projection Material in the Details panel under the Materials section.

Step 2: Change to Modeling Mode

• On the left side of the Unreal Engine editor, change your selection mode to Modeling Mode as shown in the image.

  

Step 3: Vertex Paint

• Make sure your object is selected in the viewport.
• Navigate to the Attributes tab, and select Paint Vertex, as shown in the image.

  

Step 4: Blank Paint

• Make sure all the channels (Red, Green, and Blue) are selected in the Channel Filter.
• Scroll down to the Quick Action tab and click on Fill Black to reset the vertex colors.

  

Step 5: Brush and Color Settings

• Make sure your Paint Brush color is set to pure White.
• Ensure your Eraser color is set to pure Black.
• Black controls the base (Material A). Red controls Material B. Green controls Material C. Blue controls Material D.
• by adjusting the flow and the fall off you can control the strength on blending between to material (recommend using a low number such as 0.1 for the flow variable)

3.2 Material Blending

Material blending allows you to seamlessly transition between the different materials applied to your mesh using vertex painting. Each channel (Red, Green, and Blue) controls a specific material, blending it over the base material

Step 1: Material Blending Control

• In your Material Instance, under the "01_Blend Materials" section, each material blending can be controlled by a Vector 3 variable. For example, BlendA&B controls how Material B blends with the base material (Material A). Adjusting this vector allows you to fine-tune the transition between the materials.

Step 2: Contrast

• Positive contrast values will cause the material to "sit" on higher ground, allowing it to leak into the deeper areas of the base material. Increasing this value will make the material leak harder into the lower parts of the base material.
• Using a negative contrast value causes the blending to start from the bottom and move upward, creating the effect of the material rising into higher regions.

Step 3: Fall Off

• Fall Off controls how smoothly or sharply the materials blend into each other. A higher value will make the transition between two materials harsher, while lowering the value will soften the transition, creating a more gradual blend.

Step 4: Factor

• Factor allows you to adjust the effectiveness of your vertex paint mask. Ideally, this value should be kept between 0-1. A value of 0 will make your material blend everywhere, while a value of 1 will make it blend only in the painted areas.