Breakdown: UE5-Powered Stylized Paint Shader Inspired by Spider-Verse

Around a month ago, Senior Technical Artist and Game Designer Gabriel de Laubier, also known as Elbriga, showcased an impressive stylized paint shader made using Substance 3D Designer and Unreal Engine 5.

Inspired by Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the shader utilized atmospheric light inputs (Sky+Sun) and Normal Maps manipulation to generate additional shadowing. Back then, the creator noted that the demonstrated version of the shader was WiP, promising to combine it with some post-process effects and share a detailed breakdown in the future.

Following through on the said promise, the author has finally presented a long-awaited breakdown, alongside an updated version of the shader itself:

In the breakdown, Elbriga provided an in-depth explanation of how the shader was created, spoke about setting up texture maps in Substance 3D Designer, detailed the workflow in Unreal Engine 5, talked about a problem with Fresnel and edge detection that was encountered during the production process, discussed how rims, outlines, and shadows were set up, and much more. You can check out the full breakdown by visiting the author's official website.

And here are some cool renders shared by Elbriaga alongside the breakdown:

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