🎨 UE5 Material Functions for Landscapes

Essential material techniques and functions for professional terrain

About This Library

These material functions are essential for creating realistic, performant landscape materials in Unreal Engine 5. Each technique is explained with use cases and implementation notes. Use these as building blocks for your terrain materials.

1. Height-Based Layer Blending

Automatically blend textures based on landscape height - grass in valleys, rock on mountains.

Inputs: HeightmapSample, LowerTexture, UpperTexture, BlendRange
Output: Blended texture based on height
            

💡 Use Case: AutoMaterial systems, automatic texturing of imported heightmaps, quick environment setup without manual painting.

Implementation: Use LandscapeLayerCoords node to get height, normalize to 0-1 range, use Lerp with smoothstep for natural transition between materials.

2. Slope-Based Material Selection

Apply different materials based on surface angle - grass on flat areas, rock on cliffs.

Inputs: WorldNormal, FlatMaterial, SteepMaterial, SlopeThreshold
Output: Material based on slope angle
            

💡 Use Case: Realistic cliff materials, preventing grass on vertical surfaces, automatic rock placement on steep terrain.

Implementation: Calculate dot product of world normal and up vector (0,0,1). Values close to 1 = flat, close to 0 = steep. Use as mask for texture blending.

3. Triplanar Projection

Project textures from three axes to eliminate UV stretching on steep surfaces.

Inputs: Texture, WorldPosition, WorldNormal, TilingScale
Output: Texture mapped without stretching
            

💡 Use Case: Cliffs, caves, overhangs, any steep terrain where standard UV mapping stretches.

Implementation: Sample texture three times (XY, XZ, YZ planes), blend based on normal direction. UE5 has built-in WorldAlignedTexture node for this.

4. Distance-Based Detail Fade

Reduce texture detail at distance to improve performance and reduce tiling artifacts.

Inputs: DetailTexture, BaseTexture, FadeStart, FadeEnd
Output: Texture that fades detail with distance
            

💡 Use Case: Performance optimization, reducing micro-detail shimmer at distance, improving overall visual quality.

Implementation: Use CameraPositionWS and pixel world position to calculate distance. Lerp between detailed and simple textures based on distance thresholds.

5. Macro Variation (Color Tinting)

Add large-scale color variation to break up repetitive terrain.

Inputs: BaseColor, NoiseTexture, VariationStrength
Output: Color with subtle large-scale variation
            

💡 Use Case: Breaking up tiled textures, adding biome variation, preventing "flat" looking terrain even with good textures.

Implementation: Sample low-frequency noise texture at very large world-space scale (1:10000+). Multiply or lerp with base color at low strength (0.1-0.3).

6. Puddle/Wetness Masks

Create water accumulation in terrain crevices and flat areas.

Inputs: WorldNormal, NoiseTexture, WetnessAmount
Output: Mask for wet/puddle areas
            

💡 Use Case: Dynamic weather systems, realistic wet terrain, adding visual interest to flat areas.

Implementation: Combine slope detection (flat = wet) with noise for variation. Apply to specular, roughness, and base color to simulate wetness.

7. Multi-Layer Texture Blending with Height Offset

Blend textures using their height maps for realistic natural transitions.

Inputs: LayerA (color+height), LayerB (color+height), BlendWeight
Output: Naturally blended result
            

💡 Use Case: Realistic dirt/grass transitions, rock/sand blending, anywhere you want natural material overlap instead of hard blends.

Implementation: Modify blend weight by height difference. Higher areas of each texture "win" the blend. Use (HeightA - HeightB) * Strength to offset blend weight.

8. Snow Accumulation

Automatically place snow on flat upward-facing surfaces.

Inputs: WorldNormal, SnowAmount, SlopeThreshold
Output: Snow mask for blending
            

💡 Use Case: Dynamic weather, seasonal environments, mountain peaks, adding visual variety to terrain.

Implementation: Similar to slope detection but only accumulate on upward-facing surfaces (normal.z > threshold). Add noise for natural distribution.

9. Parallax Occlusion Mapping (POM)

Add depth illusion to terrain using heightmap offset.

Inputs: HeightTexture, Intensity, Steps
Output: Offset UVs for depth effect
            

💡 Use Case: Close-up terrain detail, rocks, cobblestone paths, adding perceived depth without geometry.

Implementation: Sample heightmap multiple times along view direction to find intersection. Expensive - use only on hero assets or close-up surfaces.

10. Vertex Color Painting Support

Use vertex colors as masks for manual texture override.

Inputs: VertexColor (RGBA), Four material layers
Output: Manually controlled material distribution
            

💡 Use Case: Artist-directed material placement, fine-tuning auto-materials, creating paths/roads, detailing specific areas.

Implementation: Use VertexColor node to access painted values. R,G,B,A channels control 4 different material layers. Blend using lerp/if nodes.

📚 Learning Path

Start with height-based and slope-based blending (functions 1-2) for automatic texturing. Add triplanar projection (3) for cliffs. Then layer in macro variation (5) to break up tiling.

Advanced techniques like POM (9) and height-blend (7) should be added once you're comfortable with the basics. Vertex painting (10) is perfect for final artistic touch-ups.

Ready-Made Landscape Materials

Get professionally crafted landscape materials with these functions built-in

View Landscape Packs