MatBatchUEr, a plugin that automatically generates instanced materials for large numbers of textures

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What is it?
MatBatchUEr is a plugin that automatically creates instanced materials for large numbers of textures, placing basecolor/normal/roughness/etc in the correct parameter slots regardless of the shape or complexity of your parent material, based on patterns you’ve selected. Tired of making instances for 500 textures? With a couple of clicks, this plugin will do all the heavy lifting for you, saving you time, energy and money.

MatBatchUEr examines the content browser directory (and subdirectories) of your choice for textures, testing to see if they match any of the patterns you’ve described and sorting them accordingly. Everything that doesn’t match a known pattern gets treated as belonging to the default parameter you’ve selected. It will then use a base material of your choice as a pattern to create material instances for every ‘group’ it finds, where you want them, keeping directory trees intact.

The plugin looks for texture parameters in the following chains:

  • Base Color
  • Specular
  • Metallic
  • Roughness
  • Emissive Color
  • Subsurface Color
  • Opacity
  • Opacity Mask
  • World Position Offset
  • World Displacement
  • Tessellation Multiplier
  • Ambient Occlusion
  • Refraction
  • Pixel Depth Offset

Confused? Maybe this little demonstration video will help.

Where do I buy it?
You can get the latest version on itch.io and gumroad

And the Marketplace?
Marketplace page here

Have used, can recommend.

@turfster – If we buy from itch now, will we get access to the pack when it becomes available on the UE4 Marketplace?

Unfortunately, I have no idea how the marketplace works at the moment and what my options would be (this would be my first plugin Epic actually accepts for the marketplace, if they do), but I’m going to go with “there’s probably no support for that”.

Okay cool … I will wait for it to get approved by Epic then. You definitely have a sale here when it is released. Good job on this. 8-}

If you get the username & email adress people use on ue4 launcher, you can ask someone from the marketplace team to provide the package to the people who pre-purchased it.
Though, I think if its several dozens of people it might be too much work for em.

Edit:

Question: Can I also create generated instances from an instance instead of a material?
I tend to set up “Master instances” so that would be very valuable for me.

Handy looking tool, nice.

The name is a bit of a mouthful though ha. Maybe MatBUtcher?

Just tested this, and looks like this shouldn’t be a problem.

Too close to a rather generic name lots of people have, which makes googling impossible, I’m afraid.
This is instantly recogniseable and searchable.

Then i’ll purchase this asap! :slight_smile:

Edit

Purchased!

Ok, I purchased this a while back on Itch.io.

I am loving it :smiley:

Glad to hear it!

Also, progress towards the Epic Marketplace is happening.
Should be up next week.

And it’s up.

(Also, can someone switch the submitted tag to released, since I can’t do it myself?)

4.13 build up on the itch.io and gumroad marketplaces.
The Epic Marketplace version should also support 4.13 now, let me know if it doesn’t so I can poke Epic.is going to take some more time it seems. Stay tuned.

Epic Marketplace for 4.13 is now up as well.

4.14 build up on the itch.io and gumroad marketplaces.

Stay tuned for the Epic Marketplace version update.
If you can’t wait for Epic to update it, try this:

  1. Copy <your UE install dir>\4.13\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\MatBatchUEr to a C++ project under <your project dir>\Plugins\MatBatchUEr
  2. Right-click the project’s uproject file and select “Generate Visual Studio project files”
  3. Open the sln file in Visual Studio and hit F6, wait for it to tell you it’s done
  4. Copy <your project dir>\Plugins\MatBatchUEr to <your UE install dir>\4.14\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\MatBatchUEr

After some delays, the Epic Marketplace version for 4.14 is now also live.

Both the Epic Marketplace and itch.io version are 25% off for the holidays.

An updated build for 4.15.0 has been sent to Epic for the marketplace, and is already available for itch buyers.

4.15 Epic Marketplace update is now live.