Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 61: Paint Box Problems

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 61: Paint Box Problems

The latest update to the color and materials system in UE4 Automation has opened up plenty of new possibilities for a car's aesthetics. However, it is not without its issues. In addition to overwriting all user-defined material colors, the layout of the paint/material selection tab has been significantly changed, with paint and material slots now being arranged into one of four different categories - a first for the game. This new may seem alien to Automationeers at first, but over time, it will be easily remembered - and offer more creative freedom to boot.

Creating an exterior paint color or editing an existing one used to be slightly more challenging than it is now, but the new paint editor offers much more variety of choice than before. For one, when creating or editing paint colors, you are taken to a basic paint editor, which is menu containing material type, hue, shine and flake presets. You can choose from high, medium or low levels of shininess and flake, as well as 147(!) preset hues and four material types (paint, plastic, carbon fiber and chrome). For even greater precision over color selection, you can open the advanced paint editor (a holdover from earlier builds) by clicking on its associated icon.

Above: The basic paint editor menu introduced in the latest update to UE4 Automation. From here, you can specify various aspects of an exterior color and its material type. Below: The advanced paint editor allows for greater precision over material color and type attributes, allowing you to adjust base and pearl colors by changing the hue, saturation and value for either or both of them.

As before, materials and color slots are still sorted into four categories: body, trim, wheels and miscellaneous areas. As before, car bodies can have up to four body color/material slots (primary body, secondary body, bumpers, and bonnet) and four trim color/material slots (main trim, window trim, wing mirrors, and pillars), while the car's wheels can have up to three (primary, secondary and lip) and brake calipers can only have one. However, trays and convertible tops can be recolored where possible - another first for the game, and a welcome addition requested by countless Automationeers.

Above: The list of body color/material slots in the redesigned paint selector tab. Below: There is also a similar list for trim slots.

Assigning existing materials and colors to slots is slightly more complex than before; however, the process required to do so is much more effective. Preset and user-defined colors and materials are currently sorted into three categories: On Car (i.e. those which were previously assigned to the car being created/edited in the car designer menu), Global (which includes every user-defined color and material) and Defaults (which includes all the default materials in Automation, with a few new ones, such as aluminum and leather, being added in the latest release); a fourth category, reserved for Campaign materials and colors, will be added in a later patch.

Above: The global paint/material group includes all user-defined materials and paint colors which have been saved in the car designer. Below: The list of default materials in the redesigned paint/material editor is much larger than it used to be.

In short, while the new paint editor menu may seem more complicated at first, it ultimately becomes a much more useful tool in the design phase once you get the hang of it.