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Emissive materials are a type of material in Unreal Engine that emit light from their surface without any external source of light. These materials are useful for creating glowing or emitting objects in a scene.

1. Emissive Materials in Unreal Engine 5

Unreal Engine comes with several built-in emissive materials, each with its own unique properties. These materials include:

  • Standard Emissive: This is the most basic emissive material and allows you to emit a single color of light from the surface. It has controls for brightness, color, and transparency.
  • Glow: This material emits a pulsating glow that can be customized with various settings such as intensity, frequency, and hue.
  • Radial Gradient: This material creates a gradient effect where the emission strength decreases radially from the center of the object. It is useful for creating glowing effects on curved surfaces.
  • Radial Falloff: This material emits light in all directions but with a falloff that reduces the intensity as you move away from the center of the object. It is useful for creating a subtle glow effect on objects.
  • Dynamic Lighting Emissive: This material emits light based on the lighting conditions in the scene, such as the time of day or weather. It is useful for creating realistic lighting effects in complex scenes.

2. Creating Glowing Effects

To create a glowing effect using an emissive material, you can follow these steps:

  1. Apply an emissive material to the object you want to make glow. You can do this by right-clicking on the surface of the object in the Content Browser and selecting “Material” > “Emissive”.
  2. Adjust the properties of the emissive material as needed. For example, you can change the color, brightness, or transparency to create different effects.
  3. To make the glow pulsate, you can use the “Glow” emissive material and adjust the frequency and intensity settings.
  4. To create a radial gradient effect, you can use the “Radial Gradient” emissive material and adjust the center color, end color, and size settings.
  5. To make the glow fall off radially, you can use the “Radial Falloff” emissive material and adjust the intensity and radius settings.
  6. To create a dynamic lighting effect, you can use the “Dynamic Lighting Emissive” material and adjust the lighting conditions to control the emission strength.

3. Summary

Emissive materials are an essential tool in Unreal Engine for creating glowing effects in scenes. By using the various built-in emissive materials and customizing their properties, you can create a wide range of glowing effects that add depth and realism to your projects.