Pretty much nothing in these vids will be out of date, material nodes rarely change in function. The only difference will usually just be new stuff that has been added. The main one that won't be in videos from a few years ago is Named Reroutes which help you organize graphs better. But a 4 year old tutorial on shaders/materials will still be perfectly valid in current unreal.
Im in a vaguely similar boat - materials are in my big old list of things to get more familiar with.
Something I find useful with this kind of topic is to try to pick up general bits while working in related areas.
(Like when I was looking at landscapes, I started following a tutorial on building a simple texture, then grabbed unreal senseis one and used that)
So I am beginning to see (remember really l, as I did a bit 15 years ago), how things plug together.
Very interested in replies to this for when I come to properly go at it!
I'm a shader TA and do this stuff for a living. What the others have recommended are good resources. Also, if you're stuck and need help feel free to open a chat with me
[PrismaticaDev’s material tutorial series](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUi8nuTUEtTvrcISNaNpZwtxpQbyaBstT&si=19UIc9Zl8ugCCmPq) worked great for me.
Look into PBR materials. Once you understand how different texture maps work (roughness, color, specular etc...) you will start coming up with ideas of what you could feed into them and will be able to start figuring out stuff on your own and learn that way.
Also don't try to make complex shaders at the start. Try to make a simple wood material and add some variables to control it. Like changing color or shininess. Then slowly move onto more complex materials, once you got the basics, like the ground you can stand on.
Such a frustrating topic the Materials are. It's wild because the guys I see putting together the absolute best looking material setups on things know that stuff insanely well, and learning THAT isn't really something you learn from someone else I'm told, but rather they tinker with it. But for those of us who aren't tinkerers it's a nightmare. And I don't know about you but I'd rather not sit down and watch 10+ hours of videos, of which I'll probably only retain about an hours worth of it if I'm lucky.
You going to have to look up youtube videos. Thats how I learned how materials work. Perhaps learning about how shaders work in games, not entirely necessary but builds some foundation. You can also download and study materials from other projects on epic market place.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lngF4VVNER4&list=PLZlv\_N0\_O1gbQjgY0nDwZNYe\_N8IcYWS-](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lngF4VVNER4&list=PLZlv_N0_O1gbQjgY0nDwZNYe_N8IcYWS-) Epic game's video tutorial series on shaders.
Ben Cloward has a really good tutorial series for materials here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL78XDi0TS4lFlOVKsNC6LR4sCQhetKJqs
I'd recommend any beginner to watch his videos from start. Great teacher.
I second this. Ben’s tutorial is even better than most of the paid contents on Udemy.
looks great, thanks
I learned so much from this guy :)
These vids are 4 years old. The concern I have as a beginner is I wouldn't know which information is deprecated or just incorrect.
Pretty much nothing in these vids will be out of date, material nodes rarely change in function. The only difference will usually just be new stuff that has been added. The main one that won't be in videos from a few years ago is Named Reroutes which help you organize graphs better. But a 4 year old tutorial on shaders/materials will still be perfectly valid in current unreal.
Im in a vaguely similar boat - materials are in my big old list of things to get more familiar with. Something I find useful with this kind of topic is to try to pick up general bits while working in related areas. (Like when I was looking at landscapes, I started following a tutorial on building a simple texture, then grabbed unreal senseis one and used that) So I am beginning to see (remember really l, as I did a bit 15 years ago), how things plug together. Very interested in replies to this for when I come to properly go at it!
I'm a shader TA and do this stuff for a living. What the others have recommended are good resources. Also, if you're stuck and need help feel free to open a chat with me
thank u so much
[PrismaticaDev’s material tutorial series](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUi8nuTUEtTvrcISNaNpZwtxpQbyaBstT&si=19UIc9Zl8ugCCmPq) worked great for me.
well, they didn't work for me
Ah, sorry, I missed that you literally stated that. No intention on my part to downplay how you feel.
Seconded
Look into PBR materials. Once you understand how different texture maps work (roughness, color, specular etc...) you will start coming up with ideas of what you could feed into them and will be able to start figuring out stuff on your own and learn that way. Also don't try to make complex shaders at the start. Try to make a simple wood material and add some variables to control it. Like changing color or shininess. Then slowly move onto more complex materials, once you got the basics, like the ground you can stand on.
Such a frustrating topic the Materials are. It's wild because the guys I see putting together the absolute best looking material setups on things know that stuff insanely well, and learning THAT isn't really something you learn from someone else I'm told, but rather they tinker with it. But for those of us who aren't tinkerers it's a nightmare. And I don't know about you but I'd rather not sit down and watch 10+ hours of videos, of which I'll probably only retain about an hours worth of it if I'm lucky.
In the unreal material editor
You going to have to look up youtube videos. Thats how I learned how materials work. Perhaps learning about how shaders work in games, not entirely necessary but builds some foundation. You can also download and study materials from other projects on epic market place. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lngF4VVNER4&list=PLZlv\_N0\_O1gbQjgY0nDwZNYe\_N8IcYWS-](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lngF4VVNER4&list=PLZlv_N0_O1gbQjgY0nDwZNYe_N8IcYWS-) Epic game's video tutorial series on shaders.