I am interested in your material but I would like to know if it works on 4.12. I understand that there are many changes in 4.12 that impact the material, from the dual normal clear coat shading model to the custom resolution of the reflection captures … what are your plans for the material?
Thanks!
Hey rranon,
There is a big update coming soon!
-New optimized variants of each material (Unique VR ready materials)
-Support for multiple normal maps, thanks to the improved clear coat method
-New video tutorial explaining the new clear coat method and getting the most out of it, including the improved reflection capture actors.
-Finally, a new tutorial on practical applications: A comprehensive walk-though of my techniques for matching reference and achieving photo-realism.
I’m currently wrapping up my own VR automotive project, but I should have time to update the marketplace package weekend. (fingers crossed)
The tutorials should be ready the following week.
-V
I could need your materials for a project I am doing now, so the sooner you update to 4.12, the better 
I noticed you updated the materials to 4.12 and I bought them.
A few questions:
- what are the differences between the VR and the non VR materials?
- what are the differences between e.g. car_paint_s and car_paint_s_s?
- have you tried using your materials on mobile? if yes, which ones would you suggest?
Thanks and big ups for the very nice work!
rranon,
-The VR materials have had a majority of the parameters removed for the highest level of performance. Car paint materials are inherently complex because of the multiple layers in real world car paint, but the VR versions of these materials have the fewest operations to achieve the result.
-The first S in the name denotes that the material is part of the “standard reflections” group. Those materials are fully PBR safe and take advantage of UE4’s built-in reflection systems. CarPaint_R is in the “Reflections” group. It uses a complex masking system and scene capture cubes to render the top clear coat layer in the paint.
The second “s” in car_paint_S_S stands for simple. Those materials are simplified versions and have had the complex masking and rust systems removed. car_paint_s_s was built because, more often than not, developers don’t need rust or pin stripes. If you create a material instance from one of the “simple” paint materials, you will notice a reduction in parameters. I haven’t counted, but the simple versions of the car paint have somewhere between 20-40% fewer parameters to adjust.
-The car paint materials only take advantage of the standard set of inputs: BaseColor, Roughness, Metallic, Specular, Normal, Emissive
All of the materials are relatively expensive in compute performance, but they will all run in ES2. I would recommend using the VR versions of either the “R” reflections or “S” standard car paints. Because the VR variants offer the best performance, you won’t have to sacrifice many other features to get it running on mobile.
Let me know if you have any more questions! The tutorials are still coming along and should be out soon!
It has been a long time since I’ve created the car paint materials but I have not had the to show off how I use them! In the past year and a half I’ve used my paint system for projects and VR configurators for the likes of Porsche, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Volkswagen, and most recently Toyota.
Now you can see my latest work in video form! For piece, I was responsible for: rendering/editing, materials, and a good majority of the lighting. Rendering 360s out of Unreal has been a fun challenge. Just another example of how versatile it is.
Is that Michio Kaku, the physicist?!
Sure is! I didn’t get to meet with him, unfortunately.
Not Dead Yet
Hey Devs!
Sorry it’s been such a long time since I have had any new useful information on car paint. Thankfully, Epic has put out a new shader pack which includes some car paint materials. They look pretty good and it takes a totally different approach to do it! The pack has a ton of other stuff too: paint, leather, metals, and others. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can download it now for free! https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/automotive-material-pack
The car paint materials use some clever functions to boost the visual “glint” effect of car paint. If I can get some free time soon, I would like to put together a video which deconstructs the materials. Keep an eye out for that.
Also, new news for my material pack on the marketplace. The price has been reduced!!! To stay competitive with Epic’s own content, I decided to lower the price of my materials after more than a year on the marketplace. I still guarantee the materials are worth the cost. Their versatility and visual quality are still unmatched, but you can’t beat free, so I did my best to get closer to it. Of course you can always check out my tutorial on building a basic version of the materials. (for free) http://www.caferaces.com/p/tutorials.html
And because eye candy is fun, I thought I would throw some new images up. Enjoy!
Hello,
you mentioned a tutorial a while ago on matching reference materials, did you release it?
Thanks!
I have not recorded one yet, but I would be happy to whip one up. What kind of car/paint style would you like to see?
Not a specific car/paint style, but more about how you set values in order to match, say, a car picture, or even some real sample (e.g. a piece of painted metal).
Thanks in advance!
I also would be very interested in a tutorial for setting up the car paint from a car picture reference.
Hey guys, I’m still working on the new tutorial. After all the exciting news from GDC, I thought I could do a better job framing it, so I started over from the beginning. I would like to finish it weekend. I’ll post again with the link as soon as it’s up.
Thanks in advance!
any hope for the new tutorial? really looking forward to it! thanks in advance!