Unreal Engine 5 Shaders and Effects Cookbook : Over 50 Recipes to Help You Create Materials and Utilize Advanced Shading Techniques / Brais Brenlla Ramos and Kenneth Pimentel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ramos, Brais Brenlla, author.

Pimentel, Kenneth, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Three-dimensional display systems.

UnrealScript (Computer program language).

Video games--Design.

Video games.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (402 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

2nd ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), 2025.

Place of Publication:

Birmingham, UK : Packt Publishing, 2023.

System Details:

text file rdaft

Summary:

Unreal Engine is here to stay! Since the launch of the first edition of this book, based on the Unreal Engine 5 technology, real-time rendering has only grown in popularity. The demand for expertise in this area has grown exponentially across various fields over the last few years, and Unreal Engine 5 builds upon that foundation and continues to push the boundaries of what is achievable in an interactive format. Against this backdrop, the second edition of this book takes a leap forward and explores the new opportunities offered by the latest version of the engine, including Lumen, ray tracing, and Nanite. The book also revisits previously covered techniques and updates them to current standards, shining new light on topics such as the PBR workflow and the different lighting solutions that were present in the first edition. Throughout the chapters, you'll be able to focus on two key principles that you need to consider when dealing with real-time graphics: optimization and efficiency. By the end of this book, you'll have explored the many rendering possibilities that Unreal Engine 5 has to offer to become the master of your own creations!

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright and Credits

Foreword

Contributors

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Understanding Physically Based Rendering

Technical requirements

Setting up a studio scene

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

See also

Working inside the Material Editor

Creating our first physically based material

Visualizing a simple glass

Using IBL and Lumen to light our scenes

Using static lighting in our projects

Checking the cost of our materials

Chapter 2: Customizing Opaque Materials and Using Textures

Using masks within a material

Instancing a material

There's more…

Texturing a small prop

Adding Fresnel and Detail Texturing nodes

Creating semi-procedural materials

Blending textures based on our distance from them

Chapter 3: Making Translucent Objects

Creating a translucent glass

Displaying holograms

Working with subsurface scattering.

Getting ready

Using refraction in a body of water

Faking caustics with a Light Function

Animating a sea shader

Chapter 4: Playing with Nanite, Lumen, and Other UE5 Goodies

Taking advantage of Nanite and Quixel Megascans assets

Using software and hardware ray tracing

Revisiting screen-space and planar reflections

Creating an arch viz scene with realistic-looking glass and virtual textures

Varnishing wood through the Clear Coat Shading Model

Chapter 5: Working with Advanced Material Techniques

Using vertex colors to adjust the appearance of a material

Adding decals to our scenes

Creating a brick wall using Parallax Occlusion Mapping

Taking advantage of mesh distance fields in our materials

Lighting the scene with emissive materials

Orienting ourselves with a logic-driven compass

Driving the appearance of a minimap through Blueprint logic.

Chapter 6: Optimizing Materials for Mobile Platforms

Increasing performance through customized UVs

Creating materials for mobile platforms

Using the forward shading renderer for VR

Optimizing materials through texture atlases

Baking a complex material into a simpler texture

Combining multiple meshes with the HLOD tool

Applying general material optimization techniques

How to do it

Chapter 7: Exploring Some More Useful Nodes

Adding randomness to identical models

Adding dirt to occluded areas

Matching texture coordinates across different models

Using interior cubemaps to texture the interior of a building

Using fully procedural noise patterns

Adding detail with Detail Texturing

Chapter 8: Going Beyond Traditional Materials

Playing a video on an in-game TV

Capturing the scene through a CCTV camera

Getting ready.

How to do it…

Highlighting interactive elements

Creating snow on top of objects using layered materials

Changing a sunny scene to a snowy one with a parameter collection asset

Moving between seasons using curve atlases

Blending landscape materials

How it works...

Chapter 9: Adding Post-Processing Effects

Using a Post Process Volume

Changing the mood of a scene through color grading

Creating a horror movie feeling using post process materials

Working with a cinematic camera

Rendering realistic shots with Sequencer

Creating a cartoon shader effect

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781837635566

1837635560

OCLC:

1381096246