🎨 Materials & Material Instances

Overview

The material pipeline in ImpactFX is designed around a highly optimized, instance-driven architecture. To maximize performance, reduce shader compilation times, and provide maximum flexibility to level designers and artists, the system strictly separates complex shader logic from artistic parameter tweaking.

The project contains 12 Master Materials and over 70 Pre-configured Material Instances, covering everything from concrete bullet holes to physical metal debris and animated dirt splatters.

Master Materials (M_)

Located in the Materials/Masters folder, these are the "engines" that drive the visual fidelity of the framework. They contain all the heavy mathematical logic, including Parallax Occlusion Mapping, Alpha Erosion, SubUV calculations, and dynamic parameter integrations.

• M_HoleDecal_Master: Handles the 2x2 texture atlas math, Parallax depth calculations, and channel-packed mask unpacking.
• M_GroundDecal_Master: Specifically designed for floor debris accumulation. It features advanced time-based alpha animation, allowing dirt and blood to realistically spawn and fade away rather than just snapping out of existence.
• M_Debris_Master: An optimized, two-sided lit shader used for the physical 2D chunks emitted by the Niagara systems.

⚠️ Developer Warning: It is highly recommended not to edit the Master Materials unless you are an experienced Technical Artist aiming to fundamentally change how the shaders behave. Any modifications here will trigger a shader recompilation for all dependent instances.

Material Instances (MI_)

This is where all the artistic customization happens. Found in the Materials/Instances folder, these assets expose specific parameters from the Master Materials, allowing developers to quickly tweak visuals without ever touching a shader node.

The Instances are cleanly categorized into three main directories:

1. Holes

Instances like MI_HoleDecal_Concrete or MI_HoleDecal_Glass. Here, you can adjust:

• Parallax Depth & Reference Plane: Control how deep the bullet hole appears.