Material Instances And Landscape Material

Development Rendering
1

I am new to this. Is there a way to use a Material Instance as a blend layer in the base landscape material?

2

Material functions are the way to go. Make a material function like you’d do a normal landscape material (add UVs as input parameter) and then output the result as Material Attributes using the “make material attributes” node. Then you can use that function in the actual landscape material and blend between them using the normal landscape layer blend nodes. I cannot emphasize how much it reduces clutter in the landscape material compared to stuffing everything there.

3

I’ve been going through this, in case this is additional help: Let's make an MMO in UE4 - Part 4 (Landscape Material) - YouTube

4

OK. So, it looks like a Material or Material Instance can be used directly on a mesh, but not for landscape painting.

  1. For landscape painting an existing material, the material graph, without the ‘result’ node, would be copied to a new material function, and that function would connect to layer blend nodes of the landscape base material.
  2. Existing material functions could be connected to layer blend nodes of the landscap base material.
  3. Existing master (parent) materials of material instances could be used by copying to a new material function and texture and normal nodes added to that function, and then that function would be connected to layer blend nodes of the landscape base material.
    Would someone let me know if this is correct.