Lockjaw: Robo-Royale | Master Material Showcase
During the development of Lockjaw: Robo-Royale, we were searching for ways to streamline material creation and texturing for non-hero assets and decided on the creation of one shader that could be made as a modular platform for all nonessential meshes. This would come to be known in our project as the Master Material shader and would save us countless hours during production. Working with Joi Saito, this was my first foray into creating tangible pipeline tools for our art team to utilize. While vital to our pipeline, the MMS underwent many iterations during its use, as we found some of our original intentions to be a bit ambitious for our intended use cases. At later points in development, the MMS would fragment into smaller, more specialized versions of the original graph to tackle certain material types more effectively.
Top-down view of the Master Material shader in a test scene
Our original intention was to split the UV of a singular mesh into up to 4 UV sets, allowing each set to have its own combination of texture maps and colors.
The first graph for the MMS is based on the idea of using up to 4 materials assigned from separate UV sets.
Early prototype footage of the MMS, showcasing the ability to combine user-specified colors with vertex paint as well as using the world position to offset the texture tiling.
Later variations of the MMS were created to tackle more specific types of materials, like transparent or glossy materials, more effectively.
Example of the Master Material shader being used in-engine.
Variations of the Master Material shader applied to various assets in a test scene.