Yes, it can work under any World Align
Yes, it can work under any World Align workflows as well - as William Faucher's product does (which is a great solution). I recommend against handholding videos for the very reason you mentioned - but technical videos ones like these that explain very clear, usable concepts like these are very useful. Custom materials can work with anything - although with other people's work, it depends on their UVs. I've seen some terrible UV work in the marketplace for performance. But for filmmakers, this shouldn't be as big a problem for you. As for functions, they serve 3 purposes for me: 1.) I can use them globally on the scene (e.g. if I'm doing a rocky beach scene and it is raining, I can use a global material instance to control the rocks all at once instead of worrying about changing 20 different materials.), 2.) It is a cleaner workflow and less confusing, & 3.) I can create master materials much faster with functions.
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Maybe should have made this a thread, idk. Do you have know an example of a global material instance working with master materials?
Where I'm at is I try an finalize a landscape before moving on, I see it as a base layer of paint. I'm using just the materials that come with my assets individually. Ofc this comes with all sorts of issues like trying to match base color, etc.
I'm trying to compartmentalize all of this. So I see dash as asset scatter/placement thats also used to slap materials on fast. My landscape master is sorted but I should be using background meshes anyway. My materials are a mess as where've gone over. I haven't even touched cloth physics, animation/rigs yet 🥹 I'm desprate to map this all out in my mind lol
No problem lol. But a thread is a good idea. In the case of a global material instance, this is slightly advanced but you'll want to use something called a Scalar Parameter for for settings like say... Roughness Intensity, and Vector Parameter nodes for things like colors for the rocks. This is something you'll learn when you set up your own master material.
As for as how to apply it to, say, for example - you have a red rock, a green rock, and a blue rock. You'll first create a master material that applies to all 3 rocks. It will be the global solution. Then, you'll duplicate the global material instance, change the color/texture to match each color of the 3 rocks, and you'll be able to use an child instance that respects the rock's color. BUT you'll still be able to use the global instance to control all the rocks at the same time with things like... applying moss, wetness, snow, dirt, etc.
I don't have an immediate reference for this unfortunately, but I'll send it your way if I find something - I'm just hoping I can at least explain the general idea
I'll have to look into it at some point. I have serval courses that may cover this that I just need to find time for. For now I'm just going to focus on scene blockout. There is so much to this stuff haha. Thanks for the expertise!
No problem. I don't think this is useful for you just yet, but I'm sure you'll come back to this topic eventually - but at least now you know where to look and what to look at when you do. I wish you the best on your project and scene prototyping. 🙂