Looking for Advice: Random Moving Material that Can be Affected in World

Development Rendering
1

Hi,

I was hoping someone could give me some advice on how to start putting together this feature I want in my project. I want a wall to look like its being covered by bugs, so much that you can’t see the wall material behind them. The bugs are moving randomly around on the wall and when the player uses something like a flashlight on them they move or disappear so the player can see the wall. I have the light bit working with other parts of my project using a linetrace and I’m playing around in the material editor trying to get a decal that will just move around randomly (using the panner and rotater nodes).

Any advice? I found some tutorials on making random colors appear but that’s not exactly what I’m looking for.

2

Is the influence limited to a single point or do you want to be able to have an unlimited amount of influencers?

If it is limited to a single (or relatively low number) you can simply use a vector parameter to transfer the hit location of your trace to your wall material. You can then mask out an area around this location in a similar way as I described in this thread:

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?54733-Is-this-possible

In your case you probably want a slightly more organic animated edge, but the basic concept is the same.

3

Thanks! I’ll give it a try!