MaterialParameterCollection's and the Material Graph Issues

General Feedback & Requests
1

Hey guys,

I am a huge fan of MaterialParamterCollections and use them whenever possible, however there is one that needs to be addressed; MaterialParameterCollection values cannot be previewed live in the material graph, using a CollectionParameter in a node network will end up causing every node’s preview to be totally black that is connected in that network. I have some images here to demonstrate what I mean, they were captured in 4.6.1, but I have confirmed in 4.7 preview 7 occurs as well.

is what you will see using the VectorParameter’s. Note that All nodes are being previewed live on the graph canvas, each node displays it’s preview, and the material preview viewport on the left shows the proper end result:

MPC_Issue_RegParams.PNG
MPC_Issue_RegParams.PNG1124×751 186 KB

Now compare that to the exact same parameter values from a MPC using CollectionParameters:

MPC_Issue_MpcParams.PNG
MPC_Issue_MpcParams.PNG1189×768 189 KB

The preview viewport on the left shows the end result correctly, but none of the nodes on the graph update their individual previews. If I was to right click on the Lerp in the image above and choose “Start Previewing Node” the end result will preview correctly in the material preview viewport, but the node itself remains completely black in the editor graph.

No matter what you add to the node network it will always preview as 0-Black. As the node network starts to get more complicated can become a bit frustrating:

MPC_Issue_RegParams.PNG
MPC_Issue_RegParams.PNG1124×751 188 KB

It seems like should be fairly easy to fix since you can preview it in the material viewport, so I would like to make a feature request to add in a live preview of MPC nodes using their default values set in the MPC. Hopefully isn’t too difficult to do, it would be a big help when building materials.

Let me know if you need any more info, thanks guys!

2

Hey ,

I asked Eric Ketchum if he knew about . He said there is already a feature request in for , although I’m not able to locate the JIRA at the moment, he assures me it’s in there. :slight_smile:

3

Sounds good. I’ve had since I first started using MPC’s back in 4.2, so I’m hopeful it will be implemented soon.

Thanks as always for looking into it ! :wink:

4

Hey ,

Apparently I was mistaken when talking to Eric. There was a feature request for the Dynamic MPC, so I’ll have to put together the request for and get that submitted.

Sorry for the confusion on my part.

5

Hello everyone,

I think there is not only a problem with the preview of MaterialParameterCollections but also when using them in a material for a widget in a widget blueprint. The output seems to be really always black for a widget in a widget blueprint, no matter what color you define in the MaterialParameterCollection.

Reproduction:

  1. Create a Material that references a vector value (e.g. red) in a MaterialParameterCollection.
  2. Create a widget blueprint with a button. As style, button uses the created material in step 1.
  3. Check whether the material of the button is shown correctly, in my case it does not and shows always black.

I am using 4.7.0 Preview 8.