Materials

Split by whether they change your project. Read-only tools are always safe to try.

Reading

• Describe Material — Summarise a material: which outputs are actually connected, expression count, node type histogram, and parent chain for instances. Use this first when something renders wrong - an unconnected BaseColor is the usual cause of untextured geometry.
• Get Mesh Materials — List the material slots on a static mesh asset or a placed actor, showing what is assigned to each. An actor may override the mesh's defaults, so this reports both.
• List Material Parameters — List a material's scalar, vector, texture and static switch parameters with current values. For an instance the values are the instance's, so this shows what is actually in effect.

Writing

• Create Material Instance — Create a Material Instance from a parent material. This is how you get something whose parameters can be set - parameters cannot be set on a base Material. Verifies the asset exists afterwards. Call hf_save_object to persist it.
• Recompile Material — Recompile a base Material and report any compile errors. Editing a material graph does NOT recompile it - nothing renders differently until this runs, which makes a correct edit look like it failed.
• Set Material Parameter — Set a scalar, vector, or texture parameter on a Material Instance and verify by reading it back. Updates the instance so the change is visible without a manual recompile. Leaves the package dirty; call hf_save_object to persist.
• Set Mesh Material — Assign a material to a slot on a static mesh asset or a placed actor, and verify by reading the slot back. Setting it on an ACTOR overrides only that instance; setting it on the MESH changes the default for everything using it.