Uplift old assets

I was assigned to enhance the visuals of an older existing project while preserving the original textures and model assets. Here are the results with my take with updated materials in UE5. Note: I did not make any of the models.

screen capture of existing visuals

Updated lighting, Hair, Skin, Eye, and Clothing shader

The new version is still using the same base textures as the old one, but with the materials completely reworked.

New skin material

  • The new skin shader makes use of Unreal’s Subsurface Profile material type

  • Tiling skin pore texture material logic to create believable specular and roughness response

New cothing material

  • Makes use of Unreal’s Cloth material type

  • Light fuzz effect which is commonly seen on fabrics

  • Tiling fabric normal for extra detail

New hair material

  • Make use of existing hair cards and textures

  • Uses Unreal’s Hair material type

  • I do not have access to Strand ID, Scattering Texture, and Flowmap Texture, so I had to fake a lot of the effect meaning it’s not completely PBR

  • Anisotropic effect is faked and outputted thorough the emissive channel

New Eye shader

  • Uses MetaHuman’s eyeball material

Tower of Aether

A cosy dungeon crawler RPG with relaxing Lo-fi music. Currently in development for my own indie game studio, Loda Studios.

All assets and programming were created by me except for the music and inventory system