As stated above, it’s strange to me how UE 5 automatically splits the skeletal mesh (for cloth) into separate parts when several materials are slotted in it.
So if there’s no way to remedy that, I have a couple of other questions…
- Can I use decals to emulate the cloth textures (silk and cotton attached to each other for example) instead of material slots?
If that’s also not possible…
- Is the only solution to go back to Blender (or Photoshop) to either bake or try to make the materials into one?
I would hope that there would be a straightforward workaround since I already did all the hard work in Blender and all the details exported individually (and near perfectly) into Unreal without baking, but let me know if the above options are possible. Up to this point I still haven’t found satisfactory answers, but I’ve heard the term DCC thrown around (though no tutorial or clear explanation on how it operates… especially for a total noob like me if you haven’t noticed yet, lol).
Why is it strange?
Cloth needs to simulate. The rest id fhe mesh not so much.
Decals are usually static actors. Don’t think you can place them or attach them to actors in any way that would help here.
They are also 2d stamps so any edge case would have issues.
Yes. The real/only valid solution is to do what should be done in the firat place for performance sake - and thats to merge the things and bake out a Unique UV that can be mapped to a texture which defines areas.
DCC = digital content creator.
Won’t really help you there.
You can try and just define a universal UV in a separate channel, then use that UV to define areas which map to different material layers using the material layers system.
Overkill and probably really bad perfoemance wise…
Well, the reason I didn’t care to bake the textures from the start is because performance is not my goal when I’m trying to make a short film/episode. Even if the whole thing renders at 5 fps with every process active it makes no difference to me 'cause the way I see it 5 frames per second is better than rendering at 1 frame per 3 minutes in any traditional 3D software. That’s a win in my view. That said, although I’m exaggerating a bit with the 5 fps comment, all I need is 24-30 fps with FX/processes off to get the desired result when it renders out with all the bells and whistles.
You can try and just define a universal UV in a separate channel, then use that UV to define areas which map to different material layers using the material layers system.
Nice. I’ll look into that. Thanks 