Car Paint Shader - Advanced Materials - Episode 9 

Hi Ben, I wanted to drop by and apologize for having not contributed any views in a while. Was going through my subscriptions and pruning them, but decided to stay subscribed here for the value you'd given me when I learned from you. Sadly, the nature of an educational channel is that your userbase eventually learns enough from you that they may ultimately lose the need to watch by coming to understand the underlying principles which you have taught quite thoroughly. See, where in similar channels or guides, people will explain HOW to make a specific shader, you instead delve into explaining WHY the math works. And after a few tutorials, I found it became easier and easier to use those mathematic principles to design my own shaders without needing to ask someone how to do so. (Coupled with other development work I was doing, this process escalated even more quickly overall.) And this is a sign of a great educator: To haven your students to not need your help anymore. So thank you, Ben. I'll stay subscribed and every now and then pull you up in the background for the added metrics, but it's been almost 2 years since I think I've actually needed your help, and I greatly appreciate how much you helped me with getting familiarized in the beginning.

One of the most important shader lessons till date. Thanks Ben.

Thank you for this and for including the normal map even!

You really need to make a video on why you're making all these videos for free. I almost never comment on YT, but I watched most of your videos over the years and... 10/10 content. Thank you! I especially enjoyed the procedural grid and texture tiling break-up series. I'm currently looking for ways to combine your break-up technique with a 3D Voronoi mask (preferably cached) or a seamless Voronoi cube map (preferably from 6 cached projections), but I haven't figured out a way to index the Voronoi cells and edges yet. I thought it was a cool idea to share.

This series is just endlessly helpful

Nice. It's also possible to gradiate the fresnel using a colour curve asset, which acts like a gradient map in Photoshop & SBS. Where as with lerps you are limited to the number of points defined in the shader.

This is the pearlescent shader blackbox used for the old need for speed games (this is just in shader but they precalculated some parts in code, but it still works). Here is the pseudocode: FVector ViewDir = Normalize(CameraPosition - WorldPosition); float VDot = Dot(ViewDir, VertexNormal); //Here happens the sRGB conversion for Unreal float VDotN = Max(Pow(VDot, 2.2), 0.01); FLinearColor DiffuseMin = FLinearColor(0.794, 0.974, 1.01); float DiffuseMinLevel = 0.697; DiffuseMin *= DiffuseMinLevel ; FLinearColor DiffuseMax = FLinearColor(0.142, 0.157, 0.951); float DiffuseMaxLevel = 1.798; DiffuseMax *=DiffuseMaxLevel ; FLInearColor DiffuseRange = DiffuseMax * DiffuseMaxLevel - DiffuseMin * DiffuseMinLevel ; FLinearColor DiffuseColor = DiffuseMin + DiffuseRange * VDotN; FLinearColor PaintColor = FLinearColor(0.351, 0.045, 0.045); FLinearColor FinalColor = PaintColor * DiffuseColor ; They did he same thing with specular colors, just influenced the VDotN with a Pow(VDotN, SpecularBlend); As Unreal doesnt allow Specular Color you can add this simply on top of the paint color to achieve another layer with the a SpecularBlend value of eg. 2.0; Example for the specular ranges that fit here: FLinearColor SpecularMin = FLinearColor(1,0, 0,15, 1,7); float SpecularMinLevel = 1,476; FLinearColor SpecularMax = FLinearColor(0,165, 1,237,1,0); float SpecularMaxLevel = 1,273; float SpecularBlend = 1.918; They also used this range thing to colorize the reflection texture but that is in UE just for reflection captures and i assume barely anyone uses them for performance reason. But that could be another layer for the diffuse color in UE.

Thanks a lot for the great tutorial! Really helpful

I would really like to see 2 tutorials from you: 1) Blending Normalmaps from different UV Channels (eg the second UV Channel contains a Decal Atlas) 2) A Fluid in a Bottle. Maybe you know the Bottles from Half Life Alyx, if you move them around, the shader simulates how the fluid react to the movement. Thank you for your great Tutorials Ben! I really like them! 😊

As always, great video master. Thanks a lot. Btw I just wanted to say that Unity have that Coat Normal option too but only in the StackLit shaders.

Great video. Thank you

Amazing. thank you ♥

Hello! Thank you for the amazing videos Ben! I realize I'm kinda late to the underwater post-processing effects party, but could you do a tutorial on creating realistic lighting underwater ?

thanks, grate tutorial

Ok I have a lot of questions!! Also, what a great video!!! 1 - Could you use the voronoi effect to generate a glittery normal map? I guess you would need to seed a new value in each cell across the different normal channels. Is that viable? 2 - Is it just a real-world physical property of car paint to have a fresnel color effect? Also thank you for giving me a name for the chameleon effect paint. 3 - Is the effect of adding the clear coat sort of like creating a specular layering effect, adding the specular highlights together instead of overriding them? So that we get both the unique effect of the sparkly specular in the lower layer combined with the specular of the clear coat? I’ve always wondered what this effect was for and how it worked. 4 - Is the process of converting the carbon fiber from tangent to world and then applying a fresnel similar to the process some programs use to generate an AO map from a normal? It reminds me of it a bit, especially before the one-minus, but I never made the connection. 5 - Are gradient maps (for color remapping) basically like daisy-chained Lerp functions? The Lerp step in the Unity instructions for some reason made me make that association. Thank you again for these videos!

Is there a technique to darken those super bright edges without tweaking the reflections and smoothness?

Ben there are gradient atlas and curves and the material can access it on unreal engine. I don’t remember exactly the name but for sure was “gradient” something

Is that work with URP?

No need for the "one minus" node if you're using Lerp right after it, you can just swap the values in the Lerp node.

Thank you for the tutorial! Do you have an idea how I can make it that the color is changeable from the material inspector? I can only take colors as input. That is not that problem, but how can I make the gradient from 2 input colors?

Awesome can u make all kind of volumetric eff like fog and smoke

Unreal Engine @ 15:00

what about using anisotropy for carbon fiber to really bring the look to the higher standard? Currently it looks like carbon veneer and not real carbon.

i hope if u make tutorial for performance with unity and unreal with better in visuals staff , as particles system, shading system which is better for performance

Or you can make a tutorial with car painting and stripes or decals.

I have seen you shader books recommendation list, Can you suggest which one of the books is best to start with for really diving in into shaders? (My level is: I know prety well C++, Calculus and Linear Algebra). Thanks.

Wish you'd showcase your materials on relevant geometry. For example, car paint on a car, rock materials on rocks, grass on ground, etc. Bit easier to visualize the result.

Hello, why hasn't it been updated this week?🤔

do you plan any ''strata material'' tuto? :)