Hi! A newbie here. I am currently working on a project in UE5 in which I am designing a LEGO cinematic scene. I’ve already designed materials for everything BUT the clear plastic. After scouring the internet, I’ve arrived at a monumental realization: nothing exists (as far as I know). So, I came here asking for any ideas for a “cheap” way to create clear plastic in unreal.
Now, here’s the kicker. For starters, it can’t be a glass material, because the default glass material everyone says to use bogs down my frame rate from 48 to 6. And the shader complexity? It’s white, the most expensive shader possible. And besides, using the glass material on the plastic makes it look fake.
^^^^This is the look I’m going for. Notice how the material gets darker on the edges, where the plastic is thickest.
What’s really funny is that Blender can do the same thing and it still remains super-efficient:
For starters, it definitely looks better than mine! (Mine was literally white in the shader complexity view) What does it look like on your end if you don’t have refraction? (Clear LEGO plastic pieces don’t have refraction IRL)
For your question about it being slightly reflective I’m reminded of this past roadmap item.
It’s unclear if they are referring to the Shading Model ‘Thin Translucent’ (Right below where you select Blend Mode: ‘Translucent’ in the Material Editor)
Just to chime in on the subject. If you want see through plastic, you will need to have some form of translucency. The more translucent bricks you stack the worse the scene will run. So having multiple translucent materials stacked will cause a significant frame drop.
The additive mode is cheap and is probably as cheap as you can go.
Bit of a thread revival, I also noticed a heavy GPU load with the solution in this thread when I implemented it. However I am doing a game, not an artistic rendering. Is there a less demanding solution that I should try to avoid killing my game’s framerates?
Perhaps that is what I should be using!
