Introduction: Hi guys, I’m Ashif Ali and you’re watching CGHOW. In today’s video, I’m showing you how to create a lightning material in Unreal Engine 5.2. This is just a material, not a particle or beam, and I’ve applied it to a mesh, so you can see how it works on a character, even as it rotates. It also works on a skeleton animated mesh when you play the game. I’ll walk you through this material tutorial, and I’ll provide the project files so you can download and follow along.
Steps to Create the Lightning Material:
Setting up the Project:
Create a new folder named “test” and inside it, add a new material called “Lighting.”
Choose a static mesh to apply the material (you can use the same character or another mesh).
Material Setup:
For the material, instead of using the UVs, we’ll use the World Position node to get the Z-axis for distortion (separate XYZ axes are a new feature in UE 5.2).
Save and create an instance of this material and apply it to a duplicate mesh to see the effect.
Creating Animated Lines:
Use a sine function to create animated lines. Add a time node and manipulate the tiling values for the desired line effect.
Adjust line width using a parameter node and apply it to control the line thickness.
Distorting the Lines:
Add a noise texture for distortion. To achieve this, multiply the noise with the vertex normal and adjust the vertex offset for distortion.
Add a parameter for controlling the amount of distortion and tile the noise texture.
Adding Multiple Lines with Different Speeds:
Duplicate the lines and apply different speeds by multiplying the time with different values.
Add parameters for speed control, color adjustments, and distortion strength.
Final Adjustments:
To create more variation, duplicate the character mesh and apply the material with different settings (e.g., speed, tiling, color).
Rotate the meshes and apply further tweaks to customize the effect.
Explanation of Original Effect:
Show the original lightning effect and explain the changes made for distortion and how it affects the appearance of the lines.
Conclusion:
The settings can be varied to create unique effects.
I’ll provide the project files in the description so you can try it yourself.
Thanks for watching, keep learning, and don’t forget to like and subscribe!
Additional Notes for the Article:
Key Techniques: World Position for distortion, Noise Textures, Animated Lines using Sine, Speed Variations for multiple lines.
Trendy Tags: Unreal Engine 5.2, Lightning Material, VFX Tutorial, Material Effects, Unreal Engine, Character VFX, Distortion Effects.
I am Ashif Ali, Real-Time VFX Artist, I make Unreal Engine Niagara Tutorial on this channel. I've made it my mission to share my knowledge and expertise with the world through my YouTube channel. So why not join me on this exciting adventure? Follow me on my social links, subscribe to my channel, and support my growth as a creator. Together, we can create amazing things and take our skills to new heights. And who knows, you might even get access to some of my exclusive files for free!