Using vertex colors to adjust the appearance of a material

As we said in the introduction to this chapter, we are going to be working inside the material graph to unlock certain effects that go beyond just describing different material attributes. We’ll start by looking at an important and useful technique called Vertex Painting, which allows us to assign specific color values to the vertices that make up our models. We’ll be able to reuse that information within the material graph to create masks that can drive the appearance of a material.

This can be a very useful technique when texturing large props as it allows us to manually paint certain material effects right within the viewport – almost as if we were hand painting a 3D model. I’m sure you’ll find this technique very useful once we take a proper look at it, so let’s not delay any further!

Getting ready

Vertex Painting is a technique that is not very complicated to demonstrate...