Mutable for Unreal Engine | Material Node
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Version 8 of 15: You are viewing an older version of this document, as it appeared on Jun 16 2020, 11:22 AM.

Function

Defines a Customizable Object material. Consists of a mesh section, a material asset to paint it, and the runtime modifiable inputs to the material asset parameters.

Use Cases

Modify texture parameters of a material of the base object skeletal mesh, like mixing in a new normal map to enhance the appearance of an applied morph, or change the color of the skin of the character.
Modify texture parameters of a material of one of the child objects, like switching the albedo, normals, metallicity and roughness of a jacket to offer the option of leather or denim.
Modify scalar or vector parameters of a material, like globally increasing the specular levels of a wet character.

Node Properties

Material: Material asset to be applied to the mesh section. It's parameters will be offered as input pins to allow customization.
Images(array): All the texture parameters of the current material asset. The amount of texture parameters can't be modified from here, any added or removed from the array have no impact, and will be re-loaded with a node refresh.
Name(Images array item): Name of this texture parameter. Informative, can't be modified here.
UVLayout(Images array item): TODO
Reference Texture(Images array item): TODO
Compression Settings(Images array item): TODO
Filter(Images array item): TODO
SRGB(Images array item): TODO
LODBias(Images array item): TODO
LODGroup(Images array item dropdown): TODO
Mip Gen Settings(Images array item dropdown): TODO
Max Texture Size(Images array item): TODO
Dither Mip Map Alpha(Images array item): TODO
Vector(array): All the vector parameters of the current material asset. The amount of vector parameters can't be modified from here, any added or removed from the array have no impact, and will be re-loaded with a node refresh.
Name(Vector array item): Name of this vector parameter. Informative, can't be modified here.
Show Pin on Node(Vector array item): TODO
Scalar(array): All the scalar parameters of the current material asset. The amount of scalar parameters can't be modified from here, any added or removed from the array have no impact, and will be re-loaded with a node refresh.
Name(Scalar array item): Name of this scalar parameter. Informative, can't be modified here.
Show Pin on Node(Scalar array item): Toggle to allow this scalar parameter to show up as an input pin of the node. Refresh the node to update its state.
Tags(array): TODO
(Tags array item): TODO

Input Pins

Mesh: Mesh section that this material will be used on.
(texture parameter name):. Optional, when disconnected leaves this material texture parameter unaltered.
(vector parameter name):. Optional, when disconnected leaves this material vector parameter unaltered. The pin is hidden by default, visibility can be individually toggled with the Show Pin on Node property on the respective entry of the Vector Params array in this node properties.
(scalar parameter name):. Optional, when disconnected leaves this material texture parameter unaltered. The pin is hidden by default, visibility can be individually toggled with the Show Pin on Node property on the respective entry of the Scalar Params array in this node properties.

It's not efficient to connect the output of an unaltered Skeletal Mesh Node texture directly into the same texture parameter input pin in a Material Node when it's not altered in any way. It only forces the texture to go through Mutable without modifying anything, using unnecessary memory and slowing down the operations on the other parameters that do actually change. This is ok, but wasteful:

Doing it like this is more efficient:

Output Pins

Material: Result material, with all the provided input parameters modified when connected, at runtime if appliable. Disconnected input pins leave the parameters out of Mutable, with their values untouched.