Material Layering System - HillMLS

HillMLS is a powerful but user-friendly Material Layering System designed to streamline your material creation workflow in Unreal Engine 5. Whether you're working on small indie projects or large-scale productions, HillMLS provides the tools you need to create visually stunning, performance-conscious materials quickly and efficiently.

This system draws significant inspiration from this SDC presentation: Material Layering Systems in Unreal

[Please note before buying: This is not a texture pack, it does not contain any usable materials. HillMLS is a comprehensive UE5 material layer framework that requires your own textures to create modular layered materials.]

Documentation

Video

Discord

Key Features of our Material Layer System:

Modular Design: Easily combine and swap material layers to create diverse materials without rebuilding entire shaders.

Artist-Friendly Interface: Intuitive system to create sophisticated layered materials without deep technical knowledge.

Flexible Blending Options:

• Simple Blends for basic operations
• Mask-Based Blends for precise control
• Vertex Color Blends
• DBuffer blends (temporary work around for nanite mesh painting limitation)

Comprehensive Layer Categories:

• Primary/Base Layers for full PBR materials
• Environment/Weathering Effects for added realism
• Detail/Enhancement Layers for fine-tuning and variation

Scalability: Create a wide range of materials from a relatively small set of layer assets, ensuring consistency across your project.

Easy Maintenance: Update and refine materials by isolating changes to specific layers, saving time and reducing errors.

Perfect For:

• Game developers focused on shipping: Balances performance and aesthetics to help you complete and release your game, not just experiment.
• Teams seeking efficiency: Modular design accelerates development cycles, allowing for rapid iteration and increased productivity.
• Artists looking for an accessible way to create complex materials
• Small to medium-sized teams wanting to streamline their material workflow

What's Included:

• Full set of Material Layer assets
• Material Layer Blend assets for various blending techniques
• Documentation with usage guidelines and best practices
• Very basic example materials showcasing system capabilities