Automotive Substrate Materials Built entirely on Substrate, Unreal Engine’s next-generation material system, this pack provides a physically accurate, production-ready material foundation for automotive visualization.Automotive…

Get it free on Fab fab.com/s/bde84e86048d

The new Automotive Substrate example pack from Epic is great!

It also shows how many new surface properties Substrate introduces 🤯. Even a “simple” leather now involves layers, F0, coatings, etc. Others add fuzz, thin film, anisotropy and more.

Lots to explore when designing master mats

Material graph.
One thickness mask + thin film does most of the work. Translucency already feels much nicer than legacy materials.

Exploring Substrate in UE5.7

Simple soap bubble using thin-film interference and a thickness mask from Substance Designer.
HDRI + Lumen lighting, everything else is coming from the material.

A fun test case for what Substrate can do.

Built a fictional pasta project for Adobe to demonstrate scalable product visualization.

Illustrator → Substance Painter → automation → Unreal

Full project:
www.artstation.com/artwork/Jrmk0D

Funny how certain projects keep influencing your work long after they’re done, even when you’re building very different things.

Even when the assets are digital (provided here by the Substance 3D team), you still have to curate the palette and set the mood.

I love this part of a project. Just laying out all the elements on the virtual desk and figuring out the visual flow before setting a single keyframe

I’ve been cleaning up how I maintain shipped Unreal products.

This write up came out of that: freezing releases properly, fixing bugs on older engine versions, and not derailing new work. Sharing in case it’s useful to someone else.

open.substack.com/pub/ronanmah...

Also would be nice if it colored referencesin the reference viewer. Trying to hunt down some cross pollination I dont want and if I could see the colors it would be so much easier. Quickest way Ive found is using the migrate feature in broad strokes to spot issues

And then you're right back where we started...!
hehe. I wondered if there was a way of making the children folders inherit the parent color or some slight variant...

I forgot that you can assign colors to folders in Unreal.
Great for those big projects where sifting folders gets annoying

Trying to bridge the gap between technical and tactile.

I didn't want the bags to just float. They needed to feel like they had weight and softness.

Spent lost of time on the settling animation + paper folding. It helps the digital twin feel as grounded as the physical mockups

Fab’s New Year sale is on, 50% off (Jan 13–20).
If you’ve been eyeing Decal Designer / PBR Check / the fabric sets, they’re included.
www.fab.com/sellers/Rona...

Time to dive into Substrate, wish me luck

Quick reminder Fab’s New Year sale ends tomorrow (Jan 20).

Decal Designer (For building and managing decal atlases without leaving Unreal)
PBR Check (material sanity checks)
Fabric materials (close-up textiles)

Everything is 50% off until tomorrow.
www.fab.com/sellers/Rona...

I adopted a mixed strategy for this project: designing the scene in Lumen for smooth 60fps iteration and then switching to Path Tracing for the final render.
Lumen is good in small setups but misses contact shadows. The final video Path Tracing took ~2 hours. #3DArt #Rendering

Fab’s New Year sale is on, 50% off (Jan 13–20).
If you’ve been eyeing Decal Designer / PBR Check / the fabric sets, they’re included.
www.fab.com/sellers/Rona...

www.ronanmahon.com/projects/AZx...

See more: www.behance.net/gallery/2363...
Get the assets: substance3d.adobe.com/assets/colle...
More👇

I got to bring SolangeSailler's leather designs to life for a recent @Substance3D showcase.

I used her original sketches and photos of paper mockups to show the full path from concept to final product.

Full breakdown👇

Fab Fab is a digital marketplace that offers creators a single destination to discover, share, buy and sell high quality, real-time-ready game assets, environments, VFX, audio, animations, characters, plu...

My fab store:
www.fab.com/sellers/Rona...

I put my whole Fab store on 50% off for Black Friday.
If you’ve been meaning to grab some of my art/assets, now’s the moment. 💖

#GameDev #IndieDev #UnrealEngine

It's not been plain sailing making it...
But I think it would be useful. Not as many as I thought seem to agree with me though

Heatmap texel density tool for Unreal:
• Actor-based mode (calc only mesh UVs + general texture res)
• Triangle-based mode (material fn, auto texture res, accounts for UV tweaks)
• Extras: camera-space density, click-to-sample, etc

Worth it or not given the setup reqs?
#ue5 #gamedev #gameart

Great read from The Oatmeal this morning

theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

a woman is laying in a pile of money with the words dolla dolla bills y'all written on the bottom ALT: a woman is laying in a pile of money with the words dolla dolla bills y'all written on the bottom

Cheers Bart 💖
So far I'm living it large with $44 in sales 😅

PBR Check | PBR Check Spot and fix material issues instantly with PBR Check

📘Documentation:
ronanmahon-art.gitbook.io/pbr-check

PBR Check - Perfect Your Materials in Unreal Engine YouTube video by Ronan Mahon Art

Watch it in 4K:
youtu.be/obI1sw-m6gs?...

PBR Check - Perfect Your Materials PBR Check helps you find and fix material issues fast. It shows errors with color-coded overlays and offers one-click fixes, whether you’re making stylized art or building photorealistic worlds.🎬Watch...

🔍 Instantly spot issues in basecolor, roughness & metal channels.
🎨 Color-coded overlays + viewmodes for quick diagnosis & fixes.
⚡ Customizable rules & colors.
fab.com/s/7cbe4f2a9155

I made a new tool for Unreal artists 🚀

PBR Check spots material issues + helps you fix them with one click.

Stylized or realistic, keep your materials looking their best.

Available on FAB for UnrealEngine
Get it here:
fab.com/s/7cbe4f2a9155

#UnrealEngine #GameDev #IndieDev