Awesome! Thank you for always giving an explanation of the math behind your shaders. I love seeing the techniques you use for all of these different effects.
This is honestly shocking! I knew that the last video about the water shade was good looking, but also that something was off about it and I never would've thought this was it and that it would make such a massive difference - it look so much better now! :). Really cool tutorial.
Great content . As a level design student I found this really relevant and very well presented. Refreshing to learn from someone who can communicate and narrate in such a pleasant manner.
Hi Ben ! I've been following your tips and tricks and now tutorials for quite a long time, and I just wanted to say a BIG thanks ! It's really pleasant to follow and I learnt a lot of interesting things for my projects, I'm always happy when a new video is published ! I wish you all the best for this new year and again, a great thank you !
This is one of the best examples of “faking it”. Might be interesting seeing how this compares with Unreal 4.26 with native water caustic support. Great video!
You're totally right. Both of the effects I'm showing here are meant to imitate the appearance of real-world effects - but they're not actually doing any light simulation, and aren't even connected at all to the ripples on the water. The 4.26 caustics are much more realistic, but my impression of that effect is that it's quite a bit more expensive to create. I could be wrong about that, though. I'd like to compare them as well!
@@BenCloward Thank you for the insight! Nevertheless, I'm subscribed and looking forward to when you're going to cover that! The whole water system is very confusing (few documentation created...)
Ben, you are on fire! May I suggest for later videos volumetric clouds. Although I managed to make volume textures and fairly nice clouds I would like your opinion and knowledge about it :)
Thanks a lot Ben! Is there any way to blend/fade the decals in z axis? In this case, as you get higher and higher on the rock surfaces, the wetness cuts off immediately as an almost sharp line. It would be awesome to have a noise blend and a smoother gradient there imo
The decal itself does some blending in the Z axis but it's not as rounded as the other two dimensions. If you want to do that, you can modify the edge mask to also include the Z axis and then increase the large multiply value.
Thank you Ben for all awesome tutorials, they are all interesting and useful. I am a video game artist student and I have a request. If you don't mind, I need a tutorial to making a dust layer material, shader or decal. That can cover the surface. Thank you.
Decals are 3d, so if you only want to project them on one axis, you have to mask out the sides in the material. If you watch my caustics decal tutorial (ua-cam.com/video/9z6EMsoqLDY/v-deo.html) starting at about 17:19, I show how to project in 3 axes instead of just one. If you only want one, you can do a dot product between the decal's Y axis and the normal of the object's surface. Use the result to multiply the opacity of your decal to mask it out.
For some reason none of my meshes are receiving the decal, only the landscape under them. When viewing the roughness visualizer all my meshes in the river are pretty white. Edit: I had to go under foliage settings and enable 'Receive Decals' somehow I must have overlooked that or the option wasn't there at the time this video was made.
I've got a weird problem. The wetness decal isn't making any of the foliage placed by the foliage tool wet, but when I placed one in the "construction yard" it appears just fine. The same goes with the logs because they were placed by hand. Any ideas why this is happening?
maaaaaannnnnnn this changed my story I have to be real here... wow... I had long subscribed to ur channel but just today I paid attention to this video... super super helpful with the decal... i tried this and its just working... I only got stuck at creating the masks (mask R) and (mask G) please how did u get that node? mi decal have sharp edges so that will massively help me. Thanks
Yes - thanks for the suggestion. I'm planning to do another series of videos in the future (after I finish the current series) that will show how to create an auto-material.
Has anyone else had any trouble utilizing this in UE5? For some reason it is not working for me, and I am not having any luck playing around with different settings. My meshes have the "receive decal" checkbox clicked.
What and how you use RVT I'm curious? For me I tried RVT for landscapes but quickly found out it doesn't work with large or tiled terrain. There's a hard limit of 7 RVT volumes and it doesn't stream out when player is moving in world composition. So only first 7 tiles will have RVT on it. But even for small 1k map RVT landscape material looks bad when looking at a glancing angles. I'm not interested in it because it doesn't work in world composition currently, but I'm curious how others use it.
@@artemaung5274 I don't really get those fancy features of RVT. I just wanted some blend between the landscape and the props. So I just did it. I used only 2 RVT volumes. One for landscape, one specially for water and some decals. Really helps in reducing draw calls. For the glancing angle issue I found that when using many props is it just feels blended. As example the a lone rock have that ugly texture stretching at blending point but adding some small rocks around fixed that a bit and the rock looks more natural in the environment. I just use it for a bit non expensive somehow cheap working blend instead of that fancy "Distance near to surface" node. Makes the scene look better.
4.25 new sky Atmosphere and volumetric clouds would be great if you can show us how it's done. Although it sounds like you're planning on static lightning and I'm not sure new sky atmosphere works with static lightning :/
This simple decal trick makes a huge difference. I was so hyped about the outcome I made short comparison video. Now I just need to go back to your older videos and get the water caustics and foam working. You can see what I learned from Ben at: ua-cam.com/video/AYLnCgAgVs8/v-deo.html
Starting at 1:39, I show how to create a decal and add it to the scene. The Water_Wetness_Decal material that I apply to it is a material that we also create in this video, starting at 2:46. Let me know if there's something else that you're missing.
I dunno, ive seen so many river shaders, but almost all (non-stylized) ones look much more fake then the rest of the environment. Even unreals new rivers. It’s always looks too... viscous and slightly plasticky. I think it’s natural for human brains to pick up that the water isn’t flowing as fast as it should. Also real rivers are noisy as heck, ripples, splashes etc everywhere. Really hard to replicate and maybe why quiet rivers are easier to make. It think the best bet right now is to layer in something like fluidninja baked spriteanimations and have some photorealistic water texture that gets manipulated. Also a volumetric fog layer would be amazing to sell that water movement
Are you taking about the caustics pattern texture? The links are in the description of the caustics video: ua-cam.com/video/9z6EMsoqLDY/v-deo.html Here they are again, just for you! www.bencloward.com/youtube/water_caustics.tga www.bencloward.com/youtube/water_norm.tga
Thanks i love your videos, very detailed and precise. Suggestions if you plan to expand: Direction driven water bump/foam around mesh distance fields or vertex painted to go with the rocks (no flow maps). The new 4.26 water shading. RVT wetness (ua-cam.com/video/gbj1qgPOl3E/v-deo.html
And you didnt say how you got the mask node. If you are going to teach people you need to be anal specific. Otherwise you are teaching people that already know and there is no point to that.
![Single Layer Water | 5-Minute Materials [UE4/UE5]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KLl3PZeupFM/mqdefault.jpg)
3 years later it still working =) Thank for sharing!
which version you are using, i can not find decal in my place actors, thank you~
Man, as an educator, I marvel at how clearly you are able to teach such complex stuff simply. You're an excellent teacher!
Ben is the best shader i know, amazing
Scene is looking great and really starting to come together. As always, thanks again for all your hard work.
You are a saint no doubt, love the explanations, a fantastic lesson that's easy to follow and understand.
Awesome! Thank you for always giving an explanation of the math behind your shaders. I love seeing the techniques you use for all of these different effects.
This is honestly shocking! I knew that the last video about the water shade was good looking, but also that something was off about it and I never would've thought this was it and that it would make such a massive difference - it look so much better now! :). Really cool tutorial.
Thanks! Glad you like it.
It's becoming gorgeous
Great content . As a level design student I found this really relevant and very well presented. Refreshing to learn from someone who can communicate and narrate in such a pleasant manner.
Hi Ben ! I've been following your tips and tricks and now tutorials for quite a long time, and I just wanted to say a BIG thanks ! It's really pleasant to follow and I learnt a lot of interesting things for my projects, I'm always happy when a new video is published ! I wish you all the best for this new year and again, a great thank you !
thank you so much, Ben
This is amazing Ben, thank you very much. Now I feel like creating a rainy scene.
wow.....looks amazing
Great video as always!
Just wanted to say Thank you! This was a great, very clear, and informative learning experience, (Subbed and Liked)
Amazing as always! Thank you!
This is amazing!
this is awesome, thanks buddy! :)
So cool ,Thanks
This is one of the best examples of “faking it”.
Might be interesting seeing how this compares with Unreal 4.26 with native water caustic support. Great video!
You're totally right. Both of the effects I'm showing here are meant to imitate the appearance of real-world effects - but they're not actually doing any light simulation, and aren't even connected at all to the ripples on the water. The 4.26 caustics are much more realistic, but my impression of that effect is that it's quite a bit more expensive to create. I could be wrong about that, though. I'd like to compare them as well!
@@BenCloward Thank you for the insight! Nevertheless, I'm subscribed and looking forward to when you're going to cover that! The whole water system is very confusing (few documentation created...)
Looks better than C2077 :) Cool video
you never said what node you were using to invert the texture coordinate node. i know it is simple to you but some of us are trying to learn
I can give a better explanation if you'd like. Can you give me a time stamp for the part where you're having issues?
@@BenClowardwhich node did you use in ( mask r and g ) ? Thanks
@@yurihlavnicka8652 I believe he used a "ComponentMask". Then set "R" and "B" in the "Details" tab.
oneminus inverts for anyone just coming to this
Thank you
Ben, you are on fire! May I suggest for later videos volumetric clouds. Although I managed to make volume textures and fairly nice clouds I would like your opinion and knowledge about it :)
Thanks a lot for the suggestion! I'll look into it.
Thanks a lot Ben! Is there any way to blend/fade the decals in z axis? In this case, as you get higher and higher on the rock surfaces, the wetness cuts off immediately as an almost sharp line. It would be awesome to have a noise blend and a smoother gradient there imo
The decal itself does some blending in the Z axis but it's not as rounded as the other two dimensions. If you want to do that, you can modify the edge mask to also include the Z axis and then increase the large multiply value.
Hi, very nice tutorials. May I ask you, if you plan to create any tutorial for liquids in bottles. Or if you recommend any existing? Thank you
thankssssss!
Have you done any videos on doing decals on the water itself such as algae or leaves?
I haven't - but I think I would do those in the water shader itself rather than using a decal. Thanks for the suggestion!
Thank you Ben for all awesome tutorials, they are all interesting and useful.
I am a video game artist student and I have a request. If you don't mind, I need a tutorial to making a dust layer material, shader or decal. That can cover the surface. Thank you.
Hi Ben, how do you get the nodes coming off each base color, specular, roughness, opacity etc? What do I click or type? Thank you!!!!!
Right-click in the grid and then search for the node you want in the pop-up menu.
Hey Ben! That's a great scene here.. Have you found a way to project a Decal along with just one axis so that the decals won't bleed..??
Decals are 3d, so if you only want to project them on one axis, you have to mask out the sides in the material. If you watch my caustics decal tutorial (ua-cam.com/video/9z6EMsoqLDY/v-deo.html) starting at about 17:19, I show how to project in 3 axes instead of just one. If you only want one, you can do a dot product between the decal's Y axis and the normal of the object's surface. Use the result to multiply the opacity of your decal to mask it out.
For some reason none of my meshes are receiving the decal, only the landscape under them. When viewing the roughness visualizer all my meshes in the river are pretty white.
Edit: I had to go under foliage settings and enable 'Receive Decals' somehow I must have overlooked that or the option wasn't there at the time this video was made.
I'm glad you figured it out. Nice job!
@@BenCloward Thanks XD
I also had the same problem
Thanks for the option check
I've got a weird problem. The wetness decal isn't making any of the foliage placed by the foliage tool wet, but when I placed one in the "construction yard" it appears just fine. The same goes with the logs because they were placed by hand. Any ideas why this is happening?
maaaaaannnnnnn this changed my story I have to be real here... wow... I had long subscribed to ur channel but just today I paid attention to this video... super super helpful with the decal... i tried this and its just working... I only got stuck at creating the masks (mask R) and (mask G) please how did u get that node?
mi decal have sharp edges so that will massively help me. Thanks
Pretty good! Can you also make the auto-landscape material? That's very nice function in UE4,need a perfct video!
Yes - thanks for the suggestion. I'm planning to do another series of videos in the future (after I finish the current series) that will show how to create an auto-material.
@@BenCloward Look forward to your new video！
Hi, Could you send me link to create Water Wetness Decal Tutorial.
Thanx in advance
Got it Thanx
after you finish project can you sell this on marketplace or upload somewere?
yea that would be great
Can we get that wet effect by using runtime virtual texture?
Has anyone else had any trouble utilizing this in UE5? For some reason it is not working for me, and I am not having any luck playing around with different settings. My meshes have the "receive decal" checkbox clicked.
RVT does that magic too. But this has more control.
What and how you use RVT I'm curious?
For me I tried RVT for landscapes but quickly found out it doesn't work with large or tiled terrain.
There's a hard limit of 7 RVT volumes and it doesn't stream out when player is moving in world composition. So only first 7 tiles will have RVT on it.
But even for small 1k map RVT landscape material looks bad when looking at a glancing angles.
I'm not interested in it because it doesn't work in world composition currently, but I'm curious how others use it.
@@artemaung5274 I don't really get those fancy features of RVT. I just wanted some blend between the landscape and the props. So I just did it.
I used only 2 RVT volumes. One for landscape, one specially for water and some decals. Really helps in reducing draw calls.
For the glancing angle issue I found that when using many props is it just feels blended. As example the a lone rock have that ugly texture stretching at blending point but adding some small rocks around fixed that a bit and the rock looks more natural in the environment.
I just use it for a bit non expensive somehow cheap working blend instead of that fancy "Distance near to surface" node.
Makes the scene look better.
4.25 new sky Atmosphere and volumetric clouds would be great if you can show us how it's done.
Although it sounds like you're planning on static lightning and I'm not sure new sky atmosphere works with static lightning :/
This simple decal trick makes a huge difference. I was so hyped about the outcome I made short comparison video. Now I just need to go back to your older videos and get the water caustics and foam working. You can see what I learned from Ben at: ua-cam.com/video/AYLnCgAgVs8/v-deo.html
Ben I cannot find wetness decal ... please help
Starting at 1:39, I show how to create a decal and add it to the scene. The Water_Wetness_Decal material that I apply to it is a material that we also create in this video, starting at 2:46. Let me know if there's something else that you're missing.
@@BenCloward thank you Ben stupid of me1 Thank you always
I dunno, ive seen so many river shaders, but almost all (non-stylized) ones look much more fake then the rest of the environment. Even unreals new rivers. It’s always looks too... viscous and slightly plasticky. I think it’s natural for human brains to pick up that the water isn’t flowing as fast as it should.
Also real rivers are noisy as heck, ripples, splashes etc everywhere. Really hard to replicate and maybe why quiet rivers are easier to make. It think the best bet right now is to layer in something like fluidninja baked spriteanimations and have some photorealistic water texture that gets manipulated. Also a volumetric fog layer would be amazing to sell that water movement
where to get the masks? I have not found
Are you taking about the caustics pattern texture? The links are in the description of the caustics video: ua-cam.com/video/9z6EMsoqLDY/v-deo.html Here they are again, just for you! www.bencloward.com/youtube/water_caustics.tga
www.bencloward.com/youtube/water_norm.tga
Thanks i love your videos, very detailed and precise. Suggestions if you plan to expand: Direction driven water bump/foam around mesh distance fields or vertex painted to go with the rocks (no flow maps). The new 4.26 water shading. RVT wetness (ua-cam.com/video/gbj1qgPOl3E/v-deo.html
my god
And you didnt say how you got the mask node. If you are going to teach people you need to be anal specific. Otherwise you are teaching people that already know and there is no point to that.
If you don't know how to place nodes, why are you attempting a UE4 node based material? It's less than basic knowledge.
it doesn`t happen the same way in UE5
waterfalls.