Hello, i’m new to UE4. I have had some experience with GTKRadiant and Hammer editor but since they are kinda old I went to try this new amazing editor.
I have some questions however.
I have made a static mesh (I think I always knew it as brush) and I figured out how to apply a texture/material on it. However, it is always stretched. Is there a way to apply a material but that it ignores the static mesh? I just want the material scaled to the material itself not to the mesh.
In other words: How to prevent the material from stretching if you resize the static mesh?
-static mesh -> make sure that you use a correct uv map
-bsp -> in the details panel you can find a button that is called “alignment”. There you have to choose something (e.g planar) + dont scale the brush, it’s better when you move the vertices in the bsp edit mode
I think I just use Basic > Cube for the walls. I tried making a new map but now I am just editing the default first person map.
I dragged and dropped the grass material on the floor and I noticed it is stretched (same for the walls btw). How exactly do I make it ignore the stretch of the brush/mesh? So the material/texture keeps being at a 1:1 scale no matter how I drag it later on?
Thanks and sorry for the noobish-question, it’s probably gonna take a while before I get used to this editor.
Ah, your are using meshes.
Then you have to modify the material -> in the material add a texture coordinate node and connect it with the UV from the texture sample. Now you can scale it so that it’s not strechted anymore.
But I personally would recommend you to not scale meshes into just one direction as it will strech the texture.
The material on the floor looks correct -> it’s just a little bit too large = use a texture coordinate node
Hmm, i’m sorry but I don’t really follow. Could you maybe be more specific? I have only just started with UE4 and i’m just trying to figure out basic brushwork and textures. How exactly do I find those scaling options?
Thanks and sorry for noob question
P.s. I just thought of something, do I paint the entire brush into a texture? When using hammer or radiant you always made a nodraw/caulk on 5 sides and you just texture the side that is visible for the player. This was to increase performance. Isn’t this needed in EA4? You just texture all 6 sides of a cube instead of 1?
Just open the material from your cube. In the material you have to add a texture coordinate node to the uv link from your diffuse and normal map texture sample:
Thanks for your help but i’m afraid I cannot understand it at this point. I am still working with basic geometry and textures and I haven’t had time to discover that menu yet. I thought I was simply missing a setting to make the material not stretched, but this seems a whole lot more difficult than expected then. This was a whole lot easier in hammer.
I really fail to understand it. I’m absolutely sure I must be missing something. It can’t be that hard can it? Could you maybe explain once more to a total noob how to do it?
Isn’t there just a way to do something like “Select brush > texture settings > scale”? Or “don’t snap texture to surface” or something?
I don’t understand fully, do you mean that I need to change the size of every brush using that texure? What if I want to use the same texture on different brushes but with different scales? Can’t I just adjust the scale per wall?
@rammel u need to build with bsp to change material scale like you want. when using static meshes its a material/set texture. don’t worry tho it is better once u get in to using static meshes and materials. I also started with hammer,radiant editors so had same issues you have had.my advice would be just use static meshes and build with them to start with.
you can build a bsp wall for example then texture it/scale ,create static mesh from it.watch youtube tuts :}
if you need assests to work with , migrate the sample/learn projects all in to one project . gives lots of static meshes and materials to use a base to learn from.
But I personally would recommend you to directly start using meshes, as in the future you will just work with them -> BSP brushes are not so good for the performance + you cant create any complex things
Thanks, I guess I will try to watch some more tutorials. Pretty sure once I get the hang of it it will go smoother.
Question though: Am I correct in assuming I need to use BSP for walls, floors and ceilings and meshes for everything else like boxes? In that way, I guess it would be similar to using world and detail brushes in hammer, am I right? And is there anything like map leaks? Or isn’t that possible in UE4?
Yes I would very much like to start the professional way, because I care alot about optimization.
Normally you just use meshes, so no BSP brushes, because they are not so good for the performance. -> BSP brushes are just used for prototyping (so they get replaced)
What exactly do you mean with “maü leaks”?
Don’t worry, it is just that the material is node-based.
For a mesh, eg. a cube or fbx or what not…
For example, in Unity, one would add an image to the material, for say the diffuse texture. Then one would scale/align the material, eg. 1:1 or tile it 4x4 etc (following of course the UV wrapping of that mesh)
The thing is that in Unreal all those “fiddly bits” of a material are node-based.
Node-based is a bit crazy at first but once you get used to it you won’t want to go back to non-node-based.
You edit the Material (double-click the material) in the Material Editor.
Each Material has different “slots” for base color, metallic, normal, just add each image in the node editor (Material Editor) and then connect the dots.
To start of TextureCoordinate is very useful to help with all the scaling issues.
After that there’s Multiply and even cool stuff like GI Replace that really makes the node stuff shine.
Then Material to Material Instances… That’s the bomb, once you see that it’s hard to go back.
I’m new with the UV mapping too, I dont actually know what it is, but I see thats the scheme with the boxes and lines. Maybe like an input/output system? I always thought you were talking about ultra violet something.
But once I set up the correct scale, does it stay the same if I drag and resize the wall afterwards? Or do I have to set the scale always last? So I have to calculate everytime how much I have dragged a wall?
you lay the mesh sites out (like you would “unfold” a paper cube -> ://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/solid/cube.gif) and then you move those faces so that they are on a part of the texture
No, they will get scaled with the mesh -> but you can use special material effects to avoid that e.g take a look at the M_bark material from my vegetation pack
I thought it would be easier but I have read it over and over again but I just cant figure it out for the life of me. Why doesn’t it have an option or even selection box to scale or not scale the texture like other programs? Why do I gotta do multiply devide radius coordinates and tiling
Because meshes are using UV’s which are created for a special size/mesh/shape. When you want to scale the texture, you will also have to modify the UV (in your 3d program or with the upper mentioned texture coordinate node). So either just create special material setups (like the on above) or use bsp brushes (there you can change such stuff with just some few clicks), but bsp brushes are not recommended, as they are not so good for the performance
You’ve necroposted a thread that is a year old, so I’m going to lock it and let it sink. If someone really feels the need for this thread to be re-opened, PM me or another moderator.
-> BSP brushes are not so good for the performance + you cant create any complex things