Unreal Engine: Game Development from A to Z

Materials

In UE4, before you can apply textures to an object, you first have to create materials. A material is how an object will be rendered in a game, it is a collection of shaders containing many properties that can be applied to objects and rendered in the game. In more technical terms, when light from a light sources fall on a surface or object, the material is what determines how the light will interact with said surface or object (the color, texture, how rough or smooth the surface is, how metallic it is, and so on).

UE4 uses Physically-based Shading. In earlier versions of Unreal Engine, the material had some arbitrary properties, such as DiffusePower, Custom Lighting Diffuse, and so on. In UE4, the materials have more relatable properties, ...