TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
⚠️ Note: videos were recorded using an earlier folder structure.
The project has since been reorganized to meet Fab / Epic standards.
Only asset locations changed — functionality and workflows remain the same.
Transition Mask (Single Layer vs. Blending Layer)
The transition mask works a little differently depending on how it’s used. In a Single-layer material, it controls how details within the same material fade and break up, like blending an overlay or damage effect into the base surface.
In a Blending layer material , it controls how one layer blends into another layer underneath it.
In both cases, the goal is the same: to give you smooth, natural transitions—but the single-layer version focuses on internal detail, while the blending-layer version focuses on mixing multiple material layers together.
This is a quick and lightweight way to blend using just the albedo map. It’s cheap to run and easy to use, but not very detailed, making it best for simple transitions where performance matters more than precision.
This option blends the overlay using the albedo texture as a height mask. Brighter and darker areas of the texture control where the overlay appears, letting you fine-tune how the overlay fades in and how sharp or soft the blend looks.
The procedural mask method creates a mask automatically using math and noise instead of painted textures. It generates natural, non-repeating patterns that can be driven by direction, world position, noise, or surface data. This is ideal for effects like dirt buildup, edge wear, damage, or weathering, and it ensures consistent results across different meshes without the need for manual painting.
This option lets you use a texture as a mask to control where the overlay or blend appears. The black and white areas of the bitmap define what shows and what stays hidden, giving you precise, art-directed control over the transition.
Transform and Adjustment
These controls let you precisely place and shape the mask by moving, scaling, and rotating it, while also adjusting how soft or sharp the edges appear. You can fine-tune the mask’s strength by controlling its range, contrast, and overall intensity, making the transition subtle and natural or bold and clearly defined. You can also switch between UV-based transforms and triplanar (world-aligned) projection, allowing the mask to follow the mesh’s UVs or project evenly in world space to avoid stretching, hide seams, and better suit the surface and effect you’re creating.
Switch UV Channel
This lets you choose which UV set the mask uses. You can switch between different UV channels if the mesh has more than one, giving you more control over how and where the mask is applied.
⚠️ Note: World-aligned (triplanar) projection may not work correctly when using the second UV channel.
This lets you decide where the effect shows up on the object. You can make it appear more on one side, the top, or the bottom, and control how softly it fades across the surface—perfect for things like dirt settling below or wear forming on exposed sides.
⚠️Note: This technique relies on vertex normals, so the result may vary between different objects depending on their geometry and normal direction.
__ Procedural Noise Damage
This feature adds believable wear and damage by breaking up the surface with random noise. You can blend the noise with other masks, choose how it combines, and decide whether it stays locked to the world or moves with the object. Each object can have its own variation, so nothing looks copy-pasted. You can control how rough or soft the damage feels, how large the patterns are, and where they appear, making effects like dirt buildup, chipped paint, or surface erosion look natural and uneven.
This effect creates wear that gradually fades across the object in a specific direction, mimicking real-world aging like rust forming from the bottom up or sun and rain wear from the top down. You can choose whether the damage affects one side or both, flip or rotate the direction, and control how much of the surface is covered. The breakup and offset settings help soften the gradient so it doesn’t look perfectly straight, adding more natural variation to the damage.
This mask uses distance field information to detect how close the object is to surrounding geometry. Areas where surfaces are near each other—like corners, edges, cracks, and contact points—naturally become darker. This makes it ideal for adding dirt buildup, grime, or shadowed wear in places that would realistically collect it.
You can choose how this mask blends with other masks, invert it to affect open areas instead, and control how strong the effect is and how far it reaches. The distance setting determines how close surfaces need to be before the effect appears, while contrast controls how sharp or soft the transition looks.
This lets you literally paint wear, dirt, or damage onto the object. You decide exactly where the effect shows up, then soften it, strengthen it, or break it up so it doesn’t look too clean or artificial. It’s perfect for adding custom detail exactly where you want it.
Watch: Advance Vertexpaint INtro
Vertex Paint Blend Albedo
These controls help the painted areas blend naturally with the rest of the material. You can make the transition smoother or sharper, let the paint influence Base Albedo and displacement, and adjust how strong the effect feels so it looks like part of the surface—not something layered on top.
Vertex Paint Blend Displacement
Vertex Paint Merge
It adds noise and variation to the mask so effects like dirt, damage, or wear don’t look perfectly even or artificial. You can control how strong the breakup is, how noisy it appears, and how it’s scaled, moved, or rotated on the surface. The breakup filter works especially well when combined with procedural masks, and the most important control for the effect is the edge contrast, which defines how sharp or worn the transitions fee
This blends materials using height information so one surface naturally sits on top of another, instead of blending evenly everywhere. The transition can be driven by the albedo or a custom height map, where brighter and darker areas decide where the blend happens. This makes effects like dirt filling cracks or paint wearing off raised edges feel more realistic. You can control how strong the effect is and whether the blend looks soft or sharp, and you can move, scale, or rotate the map to line it up properly and avoid obvious repeating patterns.
Height Lerp Blend With Albedo Map
Height Lerp Blend With Displacement Map
Height Lerp Blend With Custom Map
Height Lerp With Edges Wear Generator
This adds wear to sharp edges where surfaces would naturally get chipped or worn over time. You can control how soft or sharp the effect is and how strong it appears, making edges look slightly damaged and more realistic.
⚠️Note: The Edge Wear mask works best on meshes with more polygons along the edges. It is only available in single-layer materials, and low-poly edges may reduce the effectiveness of the effect.