Procedural Material Layers

A production-ready procedural layered material system for Unreal Engine 5, built with Material Layers and Material Functions to create customizable, reusable, and performance-conscious PBR materials.

Designed for environments, props, architecture, vehicles, cinematics, and open-world projects, PML combines advanced material blending, procedural masks, painting workflows, depth effects, and dynamic weather features in one non-destructive system.

Most controls are exposed through Material Instances, allowing artists to create and modify complex surfaces without rebuilding the shader graph.

Visual Documentation: A guided tour of the "Procedural Material Layers" pipeline (Updated).

Video Demonstration: Watch the videos to see how it works. (Updated)

Support topic: ask direct questions in our support section. We’re here for your workflow.

✨ Key Features

• Material Layer Workflow

  • Non-destructive, parameter-driven Material Layers

  • Reusable and organized Material Functions

  • Advanced Albedo, Normal, Roughness, Metallic, AO, Height, POM,Emissive, Opacity, Specular, ORM, and SSS controls

  • Ready-to-use layers for metal, brick, concrete, plaster, stone, wood, and more
    

  Advanced Material Blending

  • Four-channel Vertex Paint

  • Nanite Vertex Paint / Mesh Paint and Texture Paint

  • Height and Albedo blending

  • Breakup textures and procedural damage

  • DFAO, gradient, side-selection, and noise masks

  • Extra UV-channel and transformable transition masks
    

  Projection and UV Controls

  • Standard UV mapping

  • World-aligned and triplanar projection

  • Local-space and world-space controls

  • Texture scale, rotation, and offset

  • Atlas mapping and per-object variation

  • Support for meshes without suitable UVs
    

  Parallax and Depth Effects

  • Parallax Occlusion Mapping

  • Triplanar POM

  • Overlay POM

  • Silhouette Parallax Occlusion Mapping

  • Pixel Depth effects

  • Adjustable displacement, depth, steps, and view-based controls
    

  SPOM: Set the material’s Blend Mode to Masked.

  Pixel Depth: Disable Cast Shadow when the original mesh shadow conflicts with the depth effect.

  SPOM Notes: Silhouette Parallax Occlusion Mapping does not support triplanar projection and must use the mesh’s standard UV coordinates.

  
  Rain and Puddles

  Create dynamic rain-soaked surfaces using:

  • Wetness and reflective surface controls

  • Animated raindrops

  • Rain waves, ripples, drips, and streaks

  • Procedural puddle coverage

  • Noise Seed, Strength, Range, and Scale

  • Puddle color and breakup controls
    

  Surface Effects

  • Edge wear and chipped paint

  • Dirt overlays

  • Decals

  • Peeling materials

  • Fake shadows

  • Camera fade

  • Fresnel effects

  • Normal variation

  • Random per-object variation
    

  Virtual Texture Support

  PML includes dedicated Virtual Texture inputs for projects using Virtual Textures.
  

  Important: Create a separate Material Instance for the Virtual Texture version. Texture-pool limitations or incompatible texture parameters may otherwise cause textures to appear black.

  
  Included Content

  • Ready-to-use Material Layer Instances

  • Pre-built layered material examples

  • Overview and technical sample levels

  • POM, SPOM, painting, rain, and puddle examples

  • A collection of architectural, modular, vehicle, rock, wall, and test meshes
    

  Benefits

  • Build complex materials faster

  • Customize surfaces directly through Material Instances

  • Create unlimited variations from reusable layers

  • Reduce repetitive shader setup and manual blending

  • Maintain consistent materials across large environments

  • Suitable for games, Archviz, cinematics, and open-world production

  • Compatible with Nanite and Substrate where applicable
    

  Texture Credits

  The most example textures are sourced from Poly Haven and provided under the CC0 license. Attribution is appreciated but not required.

👨‍💻 About the Developer

Website: Alishantia

Products: Unreal Marketplace Profile