Material Setup And Testing

In this section we will go through how to properly setup a material in blender such that it exports properly to the GLB.

There is extensive information in the Blender docs about this if you want to read more: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/4.5/addons/import_export/scene_gltf2.html

The first step we want to take is opening up Preferences

Navigating to Add-ons and then glTF 2.0 format and enabling Shader Editor Add-ons

This will allow us to export occlusion maps if we have them.

Switch to the Shading tab to begin making our first material.

Select a mesh in the viewport and click the New button on the top of the Shader Editor window to create a new Material. I am going to rename this material BaseMaterial.

Let's add a new node glTF Material Output we won't need it immediately but we can get it setup now in case we need it in the future.

Just to test how this works let's make this material chrome like.

• Adjust Metallic up to 1.0

• Adjust Roughness down to 0.1

Then export the glb, run it through the avatar web tool and set the path in the ODK Unreal Editor to the newly downloaded GLB.

Boxie now has a chrome head!

Any specific material settings should be tested at this point to help inform what values any texture maps you create should follow.

Note about Transparency

Currently the avatar web tool removes any transparency from materials. If you want to use transparency you'll have to use the CLI tool that we will cover in the pipeline portion.

Transparency is pretty limited in game for avatars. There are two types that are supported.

• Dithered - well suited for decals or cutting holes in geometry.

• Blended - This can create semi-transparent materials however it does not support reflections so materials like glass are hard to recreate. Additionally there can be some Z-Buffer issues when using this method so if this is enabled the entire object that has this material applied to it should be expected to be transparent.

You can switch between these two settings in the Details panel in the Materials section in the dropdown Render Method