skip to Main Content

Dynamic Materials – Communicating with the Material Editor using C++

In this post we’re going to see how we can communicate with the Material Editor and change specific parameters of our Materials during runtime.

Creating a dummy Material

Create a material which consists of two parameters:

  • A Vector Parameter, connected to the base color input
  • A Scalar Parameter, connected to the metallic value

Here is a screenshot of my material so far:

material

Note that I’ve named both parameters with a desired name. In order to name a parameter, click on it and then modify the Parameter Name value.

Accessing material parameters

Create a C++ class which inherits the Actor class and add the following component inside the header file:

Then, inside the source file, type in the following code:

Once you’re done with that, compile your code and create a Blueprint based on your C++ class. Then, choose a static mesh of your desire and assign to the first Material slot the material you have created in the first step of this post:

colorActor

When you’re done with that, place some actors on your level and play the game.

Check out some results of mine:

dynamic_materials_output_shortened

 

Avatar photo

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. Hmm… Don’t see my other comment, might be moderated?

    One more question… Along the same lines of my previous question… See how you’ve hard-coded the parameter above, is there a way for C++ to determine what available parameters are available on a specific material? (similar to my previous question, but more specific). Thanks again.

    teak

    1. Hello, to answer both of your questions:

      You can get a parameter by using the following script: http://pastebin.com/PRVG04hs

      I assume, (I’ve never used it before) that you are able to get the available parameters by using GetStaticParameterValues or GetNativePropertyValues function (both are located in the UMaterialInstanceDynamic class) depending on your needs.

      -Orfeas

      1. Hi,

        Not sure if you answered the question @Micheal Gaskin asked. But, I had a question on similar lines –
        1. Is it possible to create a new parameter and assign it to a dynamic instance of a material. For eg. similar to your program,
        UMaterialInstanceDynamic* DynamicMatInstance = StaticMesh->CreateAndSetMaterialInstanceDynamic(0);
        This StaticMesh’s material will not have any params i.e. no ‘ColorParam’ and no ‘MetalParam’. I want to create these params in C++ code and attach them to ‘BaseColor’ and ‘Metallic’.

        Is that possible?

  2. Thank you for this tutorial! It works, however there is a major issue.
    This material change does not work if the instance you’re changing was spawned during gameplay from C++ and not clicked into scene through the editor.
    I am using version 4.25.0

    Also, is it possible to change material parameters on a decal? I tried to do that, but this function does not exist on UDecalComponent:
    UDecalComponent::CreateAndSetMaterialInstanceDynamic(0);
    Is there any equivalent to this?

Leave a Reply to Boriz Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back To Top