Today I taught a focused, one-hour lecture on Mastering Materials in Game Development – a theory-only session designed to demystify how materials really work in modern engines.
Instead of another “click here, plug this node there” tutorial, we stepped back and built a clean mental model:
- what a material actually is
- how it interacts with light
- which channels matter most in PBR
- and how all of this connects to performance and real-world production workflows.
This post is a quick recap of what we covered – and an open invitation:
if you’d like me to deliver this lecture (or a customized version) for your class, studio, or community, you’ll find details at the end.
What Today’s Lecture Was About
The goal of the session was simple:
Help developers understand materials deeply enough that they can reason about them, not just copy tutorials.
We focused on theory, not tool-specific button presses, so participants can apply what they learned in:
- Unreal Engine
- Unity
- Godot
- or any in-house / custom engine.
Some of the core topics we covered:
1. Materials vs Meshes vs Textures
We began by clearing up the basics:
- A mesh is the shape.
- A material is the logic for how light interacts with that surface.
- Textures are data the material reads (colour, roughness, normals, etc.).
Once people truly understand this separation, a lot of confusion disappears.
They stop blaming “bad models” when the real problem is a mismatched or poorly set-up material.
2. PBR Without the Buzzwords
We then unpacked Physically Based Rendering (PBR) in practical terms:
- approximating real-world light behaviour
- respecting energy conservation (no free light)
- achieving consistent materials that look believable in different lighting setups
The feedback I got during and after the lecture was that this section helped connect random sliders and maps into a coherent system.
3. The Core PBR Channels (The “Material Alphabet”)
We walked through the main channels you see in Unreal/Unity/Substance:
- Base Color / Albedo – intrinsic surface colour
- Metallic – is it a metal or not?
- Roughness – how sharp/blurry reflections are
- Normal Map – fake surface detail using per-pixel directions
- Ambient Occlusion (AO) – subtle contact shadowing
- Emissive – how much the surface appears to glow
For each, we talked about:
- what it actually controls
- what goes wrong when you misuse it
- and why it matters for realism and production work
The aim was to give everyone a shared vocabulary they can use with artists, tech artists, and programmers.
4. Where Materials Live in the Rendering Pipeline
We also zoomed out and placed materials in context:
- The engine draws the mesh
- It evaluates the material for each pixel (textures + math)
- It combines that with scene lighting
- We get the final pixel colour on screen
I emphasized one key idea:
Every material is a small GPU program, and complexity comes at a cost.
Once that clicks, people start understanding why some “cool” material tricks absolutely destroy performance – and how to avoid that.
5. UVs, Tiling, and Why Good Materials Need Good UVs
Another key section was about UVs and tiling:
- Why bad UVs (stretching, seams, uneven texel density) can make even the best textures look wrong
- How tiling works, and the trade-off between blurry vs repetitive
This is often where lightbulb moments happen:
participants realize that many “material problems” they’ve been fighting are actually UV or tiling issues.
6. Real Production Workflows
We finished with workflows that real teams rely on:
- Tiling materials for large surfaces
- Trim-style / shared sheets for modular kits and props
- Layered / blended materials to combine multiple surfaces on one mesh
- Decals for dirt, cracks, leaks, labels, graffiti, and damage
The goal wasn’t to overwhelm anyone with implementation details, but to show how studios build big, detailed worlds using a relatively small number of smartly-designed materials.
7. Materials and Performance
Throughout the lecture, I connected visual decisions back to performance:
- Texture sizes and VRAM budgets
- Packing AO/Roughness/Metallic into a single map
- Shader complexity and when it becomes a problem
- Why transparency and overdraw are expensive
- How a small, reusable material library makes projects more stable and maintainable
For students, solo devs, and small teams, this is critical: you don’t have infinite hardware to hide behind.
Interested in This Lecture for Your Class, Community, or Team?
If you read this and thought:
“My students / dev team / community would benefit from understanding materials like this…”
…I’d be happy to run this session for you.
I currently offer:
🎓 Guest Lectures & Courses
For universities, schools, bootcamps, and training programs:
- 60–90 minute theory lectures (like this one)
- Multi-session mini-courses on Unreal/Unity game development
- Curriculum support around PBR, materials, lighting, and pipelines
🧑💻 Studio & Team Training
For indie teams and small studios:
- Practical workshops on building a material library
- Sessions on “art + performance”: making games look good and run well
- Q&A-driven mentorship for your specific project
🎮 Community / Discord / Meetup Talks
For online communities and meetups:
- Engine-agnostic materials talks
- Q&A-heavy sessions tailored to your members’ current struggles
How to Work With Me
If you’d like to:
- host this “Mastering Materials in Game Development” lecture,
- adapt it to focus on a specific engine (e.g. Unreal-only), or
- build a small training program for your students or team,
Tell me a bit about:
- who your audience is (students, studio team, community)
- their level (beginner / intermediate / mixed)
- and whether you prefer online or on-site sessions.
I’ll help you shape a version of this lecture (or a series) that fits your context and gives your people a clear, confident understanding of materials in game development.
If you attended today’s session – thank you.
If you didn’t, but you’d like to bring this kind of teaching to your own group, I’d love to collaborate.