Create Light Effects

Light effects can be used in a number of ways; to draw the player’s attention to something important on the island or to create a specific atmosphere, such as a ghostly setting.

Before beginning this tutorial, refer to Using the Emissive Input documentation from the Unreal Engine documentation site for background knowledge for this workflow.

Basic Material Node Set Up

Follow along below for a basic tutorial on how to create a pulsing light beacon.

1. Create a new material in your project, then double-click the material thumbnail to open the Material Editor.

2. Add the following nodes:

   1. Time node
   2. Sine node
   3. Constant3Vector node
   4. ComponentMask node
   5. TextureCoordinate node
   6. ConstantBiasScale node
   7. MaterialFunctionCall node
   8. Saturate node
   9. 2 X OneMinus node
   10. 2 X Abs node
   11. 2 X Vertex NormalWS node
   12. 5 X Multiply node

3. Change the mesh to a Cylinder in the Preview window.

   

4. Add a color to the Constant 3Vector expression node and plug it into the B input of the first Multiply node.

5. Right-click the Constant 3Vector expression node to change it to a Parameter node, then plug the bottom input into the B input on the first Multiply node.

6. Drag off the top output of the Constant 3Vector expression node and plug it into the A input of the first Multiply node and the Base Color input on the Main Material Node.

7. Drag off the Multiply node and plug it into the Emissive Color input on the Main Material node.