# Material with odd square artifacts

**URL:** <https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/material-with-odd-square-artifacts/2501391>\
**Category:** Blueprint\
**Tags:** unreal-engine, editor, shader, Blueprint, question\
**Created:** [May 10, 2025, 8:39pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/material-with-odd-square-artifacts/2501391 "2025-05-10T20:39:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zipax64](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Zipax64](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Zipax64)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2025, 8:39pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/material-with-odd-square-artifacts/2501391/1 "2025-05-10T20:39:10Z")

</div>

**Hey Unrealers!**

I’m encountering a strange issue with my material—it shows odd square artifacts (as seen in the attached image), which seem to appear and change randomly depending on the distance.

I believe the problem started after upgrading the project to Unreal Engine 5.1 or 5.2.

 ![textureerror](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/8/0/0/800e63162e0928f5330907be86508109f2883705.jpeg)

**Details about the issue:**

- **No Overlapping Meshes:** Only one mesh is used, so Z-fighting isn’t the cause.
- **No Decals:** The issue isn’t related to decals.
- **Material Complexity:** The material uses multiple textures and depends on virtual texturing.
- **Nanite Enabled:** Nanite is enabled on the mesh.
- **Virtual Texturing:** Virtual texturing is enabled.

Has anyone experienced a similar issue or have any insights into the possible causes and solutions? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Pixel\_Punk](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Pixel\_Punk](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Pixel_Punk)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 7:35am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/material-with-odd-square-artifacts/2501391/2 "2025-05-12T07:35:09Z")

</div>

Have you checked `r.VT.Borders 1` if it is a streaming issue?

> **[Streaming Virtual Texturing in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.5 Documentation...](https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/streaming-virtual-texturing-in-unreal-engine#streamingvirtualtexturingvisualization)**
>
> An overview of the streaming virtual texturing method in Unreal Engine.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zipax64](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Zipax64](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Zipax64)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2025, 8:52pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/material-with-odd-square-artifacts/2501391/3 "2025-05-13T20:52:52Z")

</div>

Hey Pixel\_Punk

Thanks, It seems to be related to virtual textures. I tried converting all maskmaps and multimaps texture back to regular textures, and that worked — it’s functioning now. However, I don’t think that’s a proper solution. I’d prefer to use 100% virtual textures in this project, but that will have to wait for now. I’ll update this post if I find a proper solution in the future.