found another, connecting a coverage weight node to a unlit BSDF always consistently crashes UE, is this the wrong way to do masked unlit materials with substrate?
the masked blend mode doesnt seem to work either?
Hello,
Not sure what version you are on. Here is some results in 5.4:
- Coverage is tied to slab or unlit nodes. For instance you can have 2 slabs stored as 2 closures in the gbuffer each one with their coverage and this cannot be used to drive Masking. That is why we have added an explicate Mask input on the graph root node.
- Translucent blend grey transmittance mode is working fine for me. A typical mistake is to use emissive of 1 when you have a large exposure in your world. Making the emissive values to small to be seen. Remember emissive value is not display color but scene color. I could see emissive working fine in 5.4 with that blend mode.
- Thanks for reporting the crash! Indeed, it has been brought up recently so it sounds like a recent regression: Unlit together with mixing or coverage node is crashing. This is of course not what should be happening and we will look at fixing that. It should either work or simply display an error about what is possible or not to do.
Thanks!
no problem! and the mask input seems really helpful since it makes masking a lot more simple now and i was using 5.3 by the way
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seems like decal isn’t working in Substrate.
and I was courious if Nanite Displacemnt will work in Decal.
Ouch… You cannot just come here and say “X is borken!” no image no details no version, nothing. This is a good reminder for everyone to ask questions kindly. We are humans, like you. And no offence taken! But it is a good reminder to be nice 
Yes something might be broken, and so in this case please provide details (when?, where?, how?, what?). Then we shall have a look or answer when we can.
I just looked in 5.4 and substrate+decals are working for the tests and project we have but I guess we are missing some cases if you have something broken.
Thanks.
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Hello @SebHillaire! Sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to see if nanite displacement and substrate currently work together in 5.4 preview. I’ve gotten nanite displacement working in the legacy path, but I haven’t found any node for enabling displacement/tesselation on the slab level, even though the material itself allows for the enabling of nanite displacement. I checked the current documentation, searched displacement and tesselation in the material editor, and I’ve still come up empty. If I’m missing something very obvious, I apologize in advanced. Thank you so much for being so active on the forum and helping people out!
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Hello I have problem with interesting things
Black glow around object Screenshot_10.png - Google Drive
Hi @SebHillaire !
Just giving you some feedback here:
I have seen that virtual textures work worse with substrate. In the Electric Dreams demo, you can clearly notice the texture popping when moving the camera fast, while it won’t be noticeable when you disable substrate and “convert” the materials to the old system (just connecting the unconnected pins in the material output).
Tried more than once and confirmed every time.
Best regards!
@K_FR_NZ
Yes, I am getting the same results as you. I would attribute this to the Pathtracer being more accurate than Lit mode in regards to SSS.
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I’ve been using Nanite tessellation and displacement together with Substrate in UE5.4. I don’t have access to my computer right now, but If you have added the cvars for enabling tessellation, I think it’s just about enabling it in the material settings and a displacement node input then appears.
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Any chance you could share a screenshot of that please, when you have the time? I feel like I may just be not noticing something in front of me.
does the opaque rough refraction’s perf cost apply to EVERY substrate material?
Every material in the sense of every slab when you’re using it on one, or every substrate material period if you have it enabled?
Hello,
A few answers:
- Nanite displacement: this has got a big round of update and we have not tested Substrate with it yet. However, I would expect this to work. If cvars are properly added then the pin should show on the root node (not on slab) when nanite tesselation is enabled on the material. A bit of googling shows how to enable it.
- Virtual texture: thanks for the details! I have added a task for us to verify what is going on.
- Opaque rough refractions: we tile the screen and the rough refraction process is only executed on tiles/pixels that need it. (basically only if a slab is above another one for instance)
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it would be REALLY helpful if we had some sort of way to disable it for layered slabs that dont need it
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I got it working, thank you! Looks like the ini just got overwritten and the changes didn’t keep.
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also just wondering, would it be possible for the blurring to apply to emissive color too?
currently having to use a different texture sample with mip bias being driven by roughness input
This topic has come up before, I believe there’s currently just a lack of parity for transmitting lighting in substrate as it stands? I could be wrong though.
hello,everybody. the modularity of substrate is beyond impressive. and i have been testing it since its inception as strata and i am actually amazed with its endless capability to produce such complex materials. once one understands it the possibilities are endless. it is really important to cherish your hard work and commitment to making the system better with every release. however i would like to suggest something based on my testings that would take substrate’s workflow to the next level right of the bat.
added set of BSDFs beside the current ones with hard coded parameters to accurately describe their physical properties (Substrate Diffuse - Substrate Conductor - Substrate Dialectric - Substrate Fuzz- Substrate SSS) BSDFs. much like the already present Substrate Clearcoat.
although the Slab node is already capable of producing all these effects, but I believe adding such modular building blocks to the core substrate system with its state-of-the-art layering system will take its modularity to a whole new level.
would like to hear your opinions about this. thanks
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