UE4 – Animated texture using a Flip-Book node

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

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A ‘Flip Book’ node in UE4 is the way to create an animated texture using a Sprite-Sheet.
Its very simple to use:

  1. Import a Sprite Sheet texture containing the animation frames.
  2. In the UE4 Material, Create a Texture Object node, and set it’s Texture property to be the Sprite Sheet texture you imported.
  3. Create a Flip Book node and connect the Texture Object Node to its  Texture input.
  4. Connect numeric value constants to the Flip Book node’s Number of Rows and Number of Columns inputs to set the layout of the Sprite Sheet.
  5. Connect the outputs of the Flip Book node to the wanted material inputs.

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The following example shows a way to create a custom Flip Book material to animate textures.
Q: Why would you do that???
A: Well the truth is I created it without knowing there is a built-in option, and found out about the Flip Book node right after I finished my own.. 😀
But it’s also a useful example of locating tile coordinates within a plane..

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UE4 Blueprint Delay node

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

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The Delay node serves as a timer that will execute the connected blueprint after a predefined time in seconds.

An example of usage could be triggering a game event at a set time after the player entered a location.
You can use random values or other expressions connected to the Duration input to create a richer and less predictable interaction.

UE4 – Enable input for a Blueprint

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

By default, Blueprint Actors are set not to receive player input.
* If every Blueprint would be listening to player input events it would hurt game performance.

To enable input events for a Blueprint:
In the Blueprint’s Event Graph,
Connect an Enable Input node to the BeginPlay Event,
Create a Get Player Controller node and connect it to the Player Controller parameter of the Enable Input node to set which player input events to listen to.

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Creating a camera animation in UE4

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

  1. Create a Camera Actor:
    Cinematics > Cine Camera Actor
  2. Create a new Level Sequence:
    Right Click the Content Browser background and choose Animation > Level Sequence.
  3. In the Content Browser, Double Click the new Level Sequence to open it in the Sequencer.
  4. press ‘+ Track’ and choose Camera Cut Track.
  5. In the camera track press ‘+ Camera’ and choose the Camera Actor you created.
  6. press ‘+ Track’ and choose Transform.
  7. Move the Time-Slider to the motion start time, move the camera to its starting position and orientation, and press the little ‘+’ button at the right of the Transform track <- + -> to set the first Key-Frame for the camera movement.
  8. Move the Time-Slider to the motion end time, move the camera to its ending position and orientation, and press the little ‘+’ button at the right of the Transform track <- + -> to set the last keyframe for the camera movement.
  9. Repeat this to create more Key-Frames and develop the camera motion.
  10. Press the Clapperboard button to open the Render Movie Settings,
    Choose the file format, frame rate, resolution, and save location and press Capture Movie.

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Related:

  1. UE4 – Playing an Animated Level Sequence
  2. UE4 – Packaging a project for Windows
  3. UE4 – 3ds max & V-Ray Datasmith workflow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Create a richly colored metallic surface in UE4

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

One of the optical properties of many metallic surfaces is changing it’s color slightly as the surface viewing angle changes.
This effect can be simply created using a Fresnel node and a color-ramp texture.

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  1. Create a metallic material (metallic value of 1.0).
  2. Use an image editing software to create a linear color ramp texture (gradient) of the color change per viewing angle from left to right. like this example for a golden metal, and import it to your project.
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  3. Add the ramp texture to the material Blueprint, and connect it to the material Base Color Input.
  4. Create a Fresnel node and set its Exponent value to 1.0 and its Base Reflect Fraction to a value of 0.0 so it will provide a linear angle blend value.
  5. Connect the Fresnel node’s output to the UVs input of the ramp texture node.
    * the reason the Fresnel node can be providing both the X and Y texture coordinates is that the texture’s Y dimension provides the same color for all values anyway.

Note:
When the Metallic property of an Unreal Engine material is set to 1.0, the material automatically simulates the metal’s color fading to white at parallel surface viewing angle (the sides) like it should.
So using a Color Ramp Texture like in this example creates an amplified effect.
* Simply put: You don’t have to have the Color Ramp fade to white on the right side of the texture..

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UE4 – Material Fresnel Node

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

The UE4 Fresnel node is actually a “Facing Ratio” node (aka Perpendicular / Parallel) with some extra control.
It basically allows controlling material effects according to the incident angle the surface is viewed at, which is a hugely important feature for designing advanced material effects.

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Exponent:
The steepness of the value / angle curve.

Base Reflect Fraction:
The value at perpendicular angle.

Normal:
An option to connect World Space surface normals input to affect the output of the Fresnel node.
* Tangent Space normals must be converted to World Space by using a Transform Vector node.

Note:
A value of 1.0 for the Exponent parameter, and a value of 0.0 for the Base Reflect Fraction will produce a linear “Facing Ratio” (“Perpendicular / Parallel”) falloff blend.

Examples of different values:
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More info:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/Materials/HowTo/Fresnel/

Related posts:

  1. UE4 – basic architectural glazing material
  2. Understanding Fresnel reflections

UE4 – Material Transform Vector Node

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

The Transform Vector material node transform the supplied vector between different geometrical spaces according to your choice:

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Note:
This is useful in order to convert surface normals from Tangent Space to World Space to connect them as input to a Fresnel Node.

UE4 – Changing the timing of animation tracks in the Sequencer

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

To move multiple clips in multiple track to a different time:

  1. Shift + Click multiple clips to select them.
  2. Click on one of the selected clips and drag to change time.

Note:
Infinite clips like Key-frame sequences in Transform tracks must be made finite to be movable.
Right-Click the track and in Properties uncheck Infinite.
* Make the the track Infinite again after the operation if needed.

Basic architectural glazing material in UE4

Posted on by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

  1. Create a new material, and double click it to edit it.
  2. In the Details panel, under Material, set Blend Mode to Translucent.
  3. In the Details panel, under Translucency, set Lighting Mode to Surface Translucency Volume.
  4. Set Base Color to White.
  5. Set Metallic to 1.
  6. Set Roughness to 0.
  7. Create a Fresnel node and connect it to the Opacity input.
  8. In the Fresnel node, set Base Reflect Fraction to control reflection amount in perpendicular surface viewing angle (front).
    * Note that its connected to Opacity, but since the material is basically a flat mirror, when it’s not purely transparent it will be reflective.
  9. In the Fresnel node, set Exponent to control the reflection amount falloff curve from perpendicular surface viewing angle (front) to parallel surface viewing angle (sides).
    * Higher values will create a steep falloff curve, resulting in less reflection in most viewing angles.

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Related:

  1. 3ds max & V-Ray to UE4 Datasmith workflow
  2. UE4 – Material Fresnel Node
  3. Understanding Fresnel Reflections