Material Service Beta Updated with Per Part Custom Materials + More

[JoshSedai (Josh)]

I avoid commenting on roadmaps, but I will say that we are aware of the ask!

[ittrgrey (Ittr)]

This is really great to see, but I do have to ask @JoshSedai if there’s any chance of us getting access to some form of uncapped sliders to adjust the metalness/roughness properties without necessarily having the maps specified? This functionality was previously present in the early betas of SurfaceAppearance and would be welcomed back with open arms. I can understand if this can’t be implemented, but it would make things a lot easier in terms of tuning materials.

An example of what I mean…

Upload Custom Materials in the New Material Service Beta

A feature like this would be of great use in fine-tuning material properties. Example below: [image]

EDIT: Forgot to mention that it would also be really helpful to add some form of NormalDetailMap slot with its own scaling in terms of being able to add extra depth to materials and more broadly to recreate the existing ones.

[SamsAltAcc0unt]

This is very cool!

Out of curiosity, are there any plans to allow a single terrain material to have multiple colors? For example, different colors of grass for different areas in the game?

[itsDenDenn (Den)]

FINALLY! I was hoping this would come out together with MaterialService and here it is!

Will Terrain also let us create materials without having to override another? For example having more than one grass material for terrain, like shown above with the brick materials

[GamEditoPro]

They are export Color and Normal map. Probably, one of this 2 are used for Roughness and Metalness properties.

[BillB1ox (Will)]

Is MaterialService more reliable than setting textures on every single part? I currently do that with the beta version of Bloxy Kart, and would like to know the performance difference. I’m ok with redoing my textures if I know that there is a performance difference.

[C_Corpze (Corpze_TheDeadestOne)]

Yesss, I’ve been waiting ages for this.

As an artist I’d also love to make my own materials and add them to the currently existing ones.

Perhaps I’ll even release a material pack for everyone to use at some point when I feel like it, I love playing around with PBR and shading.

[AimiAmano (Aimi)]

I would also like to see this. My game is procedurally generated and uses the built-in terrain but one problem we have is that you aren’t able to change the color of materials in different areas which is necessary for different biomes (ex: savanna vs forest grass). Our current workaround that we are thinking of is that the color changes as you walk into another biome but unfortunately this means if you are on the border of 2 biomes, the color will be wrong on one side. It would help a lot if it was possible to have different colors of the same material at once.

[JoshSedai (Josh)]

Unfortunately the terrain system has some limits today that prevent this. It’s on our minds but not an immediate priority.

[iNazgxl]

This is almost perfect. I was very skeptical about this when it first released. Sure, Beta 1 was good with a single brick texture, a single concrete texture, etc but if you wanted more than that in one game you basically had to go back to using textures and surfaceappearance

The only thing I’d want to be added with this is an offset, for example from the top left corner of each face. This would just make aligning textures with details, e.g. windows, a lot easier.

Overall, brilliant work. You guys have outdone yourselves again.

[Extingale (Ext)]

Oh my god this is great.
Only thing left is per-voxel (so paintable) materialvariants for terrain. Or different colors before that I guess. Honestly should be a higher priority than it is. But anyways.

I had to desaturate my textures to make it work with the new recoloring (they were really dark if I didn’t). It loses out on some details because of this but it’s no big deal.

Although I couldn’t help but notice that terrain and material colors are still mismatched, specifically on this ground texture. They both have the same color value but the terrain looks a bit off. Although it could be just something with the organic tiling.

---

Edit: This seems to be related to the different ways terrain and parts handle normal maps. I made this rock texture and tried it out but its visibly more toned down on the terrain, even if I use regular tiling on it. (not in picture)

Honestly the difference between the normals strength is a bit more of a problem than the colors.(Although im not even sure if the colors are any different, its probably just the normal maps fault making dark spots darker and light spots lighter on the regular part, while its toned down on the terrain)

---

(Another edit:) Most of the visual discrepancy was caused by the Organic tiling being enabled on terrain. There is still a bit of blurring on terrain due to some sort of compression that is applied to it, but I don’t think it can be removed as it’s probably put in place for a reason.

[gato_todomenso (Kahel)]

Amazing, I really like the new features as they will allow me to upload detailed materials to my building game without having to use Textures.

Something like this for furniture, walls, floor customization:

[BuilderBob25620 (BuilderBob)]

Thank you for listening to our feedback as well as being transparent with what’s to come.

[SharpSerious]

So you’re saying we need to wait months more for 2 major updates before release? That seems like it will take months considering this has taken since December.

[Abcreator]

@JoshSedai

We are soon releasing a switch on MaterialService that will let you opt-in to new, 2022 materials.

Will this feature remain opt-in, or will we see this being a forced update. If it’s the latter, I am incredibly disappointed as I and many other developers have built their games to work with the current materials and not the new ones.

[SillyMeTimbers (Silly)]

In the Beta version when I was messing around with FFlags it was a bool value in the MaterialService. I presume it will stay this way in the future to preserve old games.

[fnublox]

Although I couldn’t help but notice that terrain and material colors are still mismatched, specifically on this ground texture. They both have the same color value but the terrain looks a bit off.

We are aware of this and currently exploring solution for this.

[fnublox]

There will be an option to choose between current materials and new 2022 materials.

[KristinaMoment (Kristina)]

SAME, I was so excited to check these out that I ran up the stairs at mad speed. In fact, the original release was the last time I’ve cried!!

This is another level altogether. When it releases though, this feature will be so amazing!!! @DevRelationsTeam any timetable yet?

[focasds]

Why do local textures don’t work with this feature?

I want to add the water texture as a Material. Also, with the changes you guys are making. Wouldn’t it be good to add a Water material that works exactly like the Water Terrain but just in a part…?