Guides

So in order to learn how the Material Edit tool in Dash works you can either watch this tutorial 👆 or read the summary of the video 👇

Getting Started
Let's fire up Unreal Engine 5, open Dash, and select a material or asset that you want to adjust. Once that is selected you will see a color palette icon in Dash, clicking that opens up the Material Edit tool that allows you to adjust various aspects of the material, such as hue, saturation, brightness, and contrast. Additionally, you can modify the roughness of the material and control the intensity of the normal maps. The material editor also provides options to fine-tune the texture tiling, allowing for precise customization of materials.

Right now the Material Edit tool works seamlessly with Megascans and Poly Haven assets and materials. It also supports custom objects, if you add materials from Megascans or Poly Haven onto them. We hope to be able to support custom materials directly soon. 

By selecting the mesh and enabling Nanite from the Dash prompt bar, you can then in the Material Edit tool directly manipulate the displacement values to add depth and realism to your materials and objects.

Adding a Dirt Layer
One of the standout features of Dash's Material Edit tool is its procedural texturing capabilities. The latest versions of the tool allow you to break up textures by incorporating dirt into the material. This feature offers a range of parameters to fine-tune the appearance of dirt, including intensity, hue, saturation, brightness, and tiling. These options empower designers to customize materials and create diverse environments.

Adding a Snow Layer
Dash's Material Edit tool also includes a snow system, enabling users to add realistic snow to their materials and assets. By adjusting parameters like sharpness, angular slopes, reflectivity, and chunkiness, you can achieve the desired snow effect. The snow system works seamlessly with other features of the Material Edit tool, allowing for surface property modifications to enhance the visibility of snow. The material brightness and contrast can be adjusted to ensure the snow and dirt effects are prominent.

Creating Realistic Water
In addition to the extensive material editing capabilities, Dash's Material Edit tool also includes a feature to adjust the water material shipped with Dash. By selecting the "Create Water" option, users can automatically generate a water plane with a pre-applied water material. The size of the water plane can be adjusted to fit the scene's requirements.

The water material's appearance can be fine-tuned using various parameters in the Material Edit tool. Adjusting the depth value determines the murkiness of the water, creating a realistic sense of distance. The distortion parameter utilizes the normal map to simulate waves and refraction, enhancing the visual fidelity of underwater objects. Changing the hue and saturation below the water surface adds a subtle color absorption pattern, mimicking real-world oceans. The normal slider allows designers to control the intensity of waves on the water's surface, providing further customization options.