Texturing and its optimization, using UE4 as an example

What the talk is about

Oleksandr Shapovalov shows how texture masks can add variety to models and save memory, using Unreal Engine 4 for the demos (the approach also applies to Unity). Masks baked in advance and packed into the channels of one texture let a model such as a rock be scaled up a lot without losing quality: one baked normal map is combined with small tiling textures. He covers masks based on world position (moss or snow on top), smooth blending of a mesh into terrain via transparency, vertex painting inside the engine, and merging several materials into one through a second UV channel. He also looks at a corner-shading mask, normal blending for soft building corners, and blending diffuse with a hand-painted tint from Photoshop. In the Q&A he explains that the shader gets heavier, but the number of textures drops. Useful for 3D environment artists and technical artists.