UE Basics Thread, Talking, Learning, and Maybe More

[Fantam_Mayfly]

@ConradG

So it sounds like you are somewhat new to the engine, so the way I understand your question is along the lines of understanding material instances.

Material instances can reference all parameters defined in the parent material they reference. Although I didn’t see material instances in the vertex painting video, I do see that the video uses texture sampler nodes for the grass and hex tiles. These are not parameters. When you right-click in the material editor, you can find the texture sampler parameter node. But if you already have your texture samplers nodes in the editor, you can simply right-click the node and there will be the option to convert it to a parameter. You will need to name it and this will show up in the material instance after applying the changes.

Yes, I am new and thanks for responding. I should have include the tutorial link where material instances are mentioned. Here it is:

Create a Photorealistic World in UE4

In this the author sets up materials, creates materials, and material instances, and specifically states that opening the Material Instance, you can see all of the textures active in the Instance and you can swap them out with new textures while in the Instance.

Between time stamp 3-14 minutes. The example given is copy and paste an existing instance, then open the new instance and there you can swap out the materials using an override function (I think). The textures can be seen in the instance editor, appear in a vertical listing, you can see the texture for each one. This is all based on the original material from which the instance was made.

However I have been following along and mimicking him, and when I open my material instance using v4.27, I don’t see the list of materials from the original material and as such, see no means of swapping them out. So I was wondering if there is a setting, that can be changed so that you can see the individual textures in the instance, and indeed they can be swapped out?

Or is this a function of a previous version of UE?
Thanks for listening!