Creating Architectural Materials

It is time to begin learning how to create architectural materials. Clients expect materials to be as accurate as possible, making them an essential aspect . Therefore, it is central to develop proficiency in handling materials and achieving photorealism. Consequently, Unreal has adopted a Physically Based Rendering (PBR) approach to creating such materials, which is the focus of this chapter – creating realistic PBR materials.

In addition to mastering the creation of common architectural shaders, we will delve into more advanced material creation options. Ultimately, we will understand the reasons behind utilizing ready-made material libraries in real projects and learn how to optimize and integrate their usage.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

• How to manage, edit, and import textures inside Unreal Engine 5
• How to create a master Material for PBR materials and how to create dielectric...

Technical requirements

The project files for the chapter can be found at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Architectural-Visualization-in-Unreal-Engine-5

Managing texture for Unreal

Textures, derived from images, find primary usage in materials where they serve diverse purposes, such as defining a base color, functioning as masks, or leveraging RGBA values for calculations. Notably, textures can also be applied independently outside of materials, including their usage with HDRI.

Materials can harness multiple textures, each fulfilling distinct roles. For example, a basic PBR material usually incorporates three textures – Basecolor, Roughness and Normal map – but with Unreal Engine you can do much more than this, even with a smaller number of textures. Unreal Engine provides greater flexibility with textures compared to offline renderers. In fact they enable the amalgamation of multiple maps within single textures, utilizing RGBA channels. This approach optimizes performance and conserves disk space. These special textures are known as channel-packed textures. We will explore this concept further in due course.

How...

Creating architectural materials with PBR workflow

I will show you how to create a basic PBR material, starting from the master material introduced in the previous chapter. I will be using a simple structure for my material, but it will be highly effective and flexible for various cases. Moreover, it will be reusable for all your future projects. Learning these basics will enable you to create your own materials, no matter how complex they may be.

Using this foundation, we will create different material instances (and apply them to the scene) – dielectric materials, such as concrete, wood, and walls; Metallic materials; and, by making some modifications to our master material, we will explore fabric and masked materials as well.

I cannot emphasize this enough – as you read through this section, make sure to create your own version of the material. It’s crucial to put into practice what I instruct as soon as possible, since integrating theoretical learning...

Creating refractive materials: architectural glass

Glass and refractive materials are another super important category for , adopted in facades, balustrades, and, of course, windows and doors. With the introduction of Lumen, creating them has become quite simple, at least for the most basic uses. However, advanced refractive materials such as frosted, tinted, or smoked glass require more sophisticated shaders. Nevertheless, once you become familiar with the concepts presented in this book, you will also possess the knowledge and tools to create and experiment with them.

To create a glass shader with a slight cyan tint for our windows, we will start from scratch. Follow these steps:

1. Create a new material, and name it M_architecturalGlass. Then, open its graph.
2. Select the main material node, and change the blend mode to translucent.
3. Activate the Two Sided option, and uncheck the Cast Ray Traced Shadow option.
4. In the Translucency section, change the lighting mode...

Blending materials

A very important aspect of materials, especially in , is the ability to blend multiple materials, layering them on top of each other or painting them on surfaces. Unreal Engine is highly powerful in this regard, offering many techniques to achieve such blending, some of which are incredibly flexible. However, layered materials can be a bit challenging for beginners, and they are particularly useful in outdoor environments or scenarios. That’s why while we will briefly touch on this topic, our focus primarily lies on interiors at the moment, so we will only cover the basics.

Layered materials

There are two primary methods in Unreal Engine for layering materials and creating complex blends between different surface types:

• The first approach uses Layered Materials with Material Functions. Each layer in the material is defined as a separate Material Function using Material Attributes expressions. A base material is then created, which incorporates...

Summary

Throughout this chapter, we embarked on an intense yet incredibly valuable journey through materials. Our first focus was on the importation and configuration of textures, as they serve as the foundation for constructing materials. Consequently, we gained practical knowledge on creating various types of materials commonly employed in architectural visualization, including dielectrics, metals, fabrics, and realistic glass. Additionally, we explored the creation of masked materials, enabling us to effortlessly generate perforated meshes such as fences or nets.

Another crucial aspect we covered involved the blending of different materials through layered material and vertex painting techniques. Lastly, we had the opportunity to utilize Quixel Megascan shaders, acquiring the skills to swiftly generate layered materials from them through an automated process. This particular shader effectively incorporates vertex painting as a key element.

Moving forward, the upcoming chapter...