Hey guys!
since i’m not able to submit a bug report (cant click the submit button for whatever reason), i’m posting it here:
as of 4.25 (.0 and .1) Material Layering is **COMPLETLY BROKEN **even tough it is stated that it got some improvments in 4.25
i know that it is still in Beta, but i think many of us rely on that system, so its not working is a huge GAMEBREAKER for me and my studio. (but we need to upgrade to 4.25 for some other reasons…)
so there are TWO main problems we have encountered:
1. When deriving a instance of a Material Layer, its not possible to change the parameters in that instance and reuse it somewhere else (or even applying that instance doesnt work)
basically whats not possible atm:
have generic Material Layer ML_Generic
and derive all kind of different Layers from that as Instance, like MLI_Concrete, MLI_Wood, MLI_Sand and so on…
it somehow works if the instance is not created via the content browser but within the Layer Stack (“Save Child”) but also not consitent.
its a completly gamebreaker for the ML System. Steps to easily reproduce are stated in the attachment.
but even if i could workaround that problem somehow (which one can not) there is another issue (which most likely is releated to the first):
2. it Completly Crashes the Editor
if trying to apply such a MLI derived from a generic Layer it crashes when the generic layer is a more complex graph with an array out of bounds crash OR a acces violation
Both of that issues werent apparent in 4.24. (altough the child layers not updating in the layer stacks when changing the parents values was a huge bummer), but at least it did work.
Would be glad if someone else who reproduces or encounters the same problems submits a bug report, since i’m not able to.
Please @Epic thats really urgent right here 
I dont understand how i wasnt able to find a tracker issue or forum thread already talking about that issue, are we the only ones using material layering anymore?
its such nice feature to derive a vast material library when using a “masked based” workflow, without having to think about the material graphs. (Basically Epic’s texturing workflow!?)
thanks!
