For his graduation work Jeroen Bloemen got the assignment to create dynamic materials for in-game characters.

The new generation of game graphics calls for a new standard of quality.Thanks to the faster computing speeds real-time graphics can go places that it never could before. A big part of realism is the interaction between elements.

DAE2015-16_GraduationWork_Jeroen_Bloemen from DAE on Vimeo.

By mixing techniques like: grey packing, normal blending and Unreal’s extensive material functions, a system is created that can easily be modified for any character or non-character model. The system consists of two parts: the material and the blueprint.

The character’s material interacts with the level, getting wet, dirty and can even be set on fire. The main part of the material is controlled by a dynamically gradient, set using a raytrace. A dynamic, easily modified material is set up and linked to a blueprint that will control the parameters.

Normals maps are blended together using masks based on bone rotation, creating wrinkles.