Once the passes are ready, the next step is building a material in Unreal Engine. The setup shown uses imported media and textures for the generated maps, along with a media source and media player prepared for the footage pipeline.
Bring the passes into Unreal Engine
The key maps used in the material are:
- normal
- albedo
- specular
- alpha/cutout sequence from Auto Background Remover, if the subject needs transparency
The material uses Unreal’s Default Lit shading model so the footage can respond to physically based lighting controls.
Understand the material setup
Base Color
The base color is built by combining the albedo and specular information, then adjusting that result with a brightness control. This gives a flexible starting point for how the subject appears in the scene.
Metallic
The metallic parameter tells Unreal whether the surface should behave like a dielectric material or a metal. A value of zero is appropriate for skin, cloth, or plastic. A value of one pushes the surface toward metallic behavior such as chrome or aluminum.
Specular
The specular control adjusts how strong the highlights and reflections feel. Increasing it gives a glossier surface response. Reducing it makes the surface feel flatter and less reflective.
Roughness
Roughness defines whether the subject appears shiny or diffuse. Lower values create tighter, more reflective highlights. Higher values scatter the light and create a softer, more matte look.
Normal Strength
The normal map adds small surface detail and lighting depth. A normal strength parameter lets you push or soften that effect. Turn it up when you want stronger shape definition. Pull it back if the result feels too aggressive.
Opacity
The alpha/cutout sequence from Auto Background Remover is connected to Opacity so transparent areas stay transparent. That is what allows the extracted subject to sit more cleanly inside a new environment.
