Custom shaders in UE5

I worked on these effects for 2 months in UE5. During this time I used HLSL, C++ and material graphs to create shaders that could be implemented in a grimdark style shooter.

My main goal was to familiarize myself with with UE5 as a graphics programmer.

Project repo can be found here.

To see the effects in action, check out our game on Steam.

Material graphs, external shaders and custom render passes

Goal:
- Explored different methods to create shaders in Unreal Engine 5.
Methods researched:
- Material Graph
- Custom Nodes
- Custom Render Passes (Global Shaders & Scene View Extensions)
For a full breakdown and tutorial, see my post here.

Pros

Cons

Material
graph

Good for simple shaders.

Becomes messy with complex logic (e.g., no for-loop support).

Custom nodes

Allows including external .ush files.
Can be used with HLSL

Easier with a game module, but requires setup.
Not recommended for beginners—UE5 won’t optimize code inside custom nodes like it does in the graph.

Global shaders

Ideal for performance-heavy shaders due to minimal overhead.

Most complex setup.

Built the effect using:
- A refractive material for wave distortion
- A post-process material (HLSL via custom node) for color/texture overlay
- A particle emitter for the wave motion
Iteration process:
- V1: Smoke direction felt off; lacked a tech-inspired look
- V2: Wave was too short and subtle; edge effect needed screen-space application
- V3: Final version added a textured blue overlay and extended, more visible refraction

V1

V2

V3

Fog effect

Purpose:
- Fog was designed to reflect the player's insanity level by reducing visibility.
Challenge:
- Needed consistent visual quality during camera movement and rotation.
Solution:
- Used pre-calculated 3D Perlin noise for stable, volumetric fog.
Additional Detail:
- Applied edge noise using a Sobel matrix for lightweight yet effective edge detection, after testing other methods.

Glitch effect

Goal: Created a glitch effect for the low HP state.
Components (stacked together):
- Color aberration
- Block shifting/distortion
- Vertical scan lines via sine waves
- Glitch pulses using another sine wave
Used a custom node with an external shader file since the algorithm required a for loop.
Combined with a simple double vision shader for final effect.

Push effect

Karolina
Motužytė

Graphics programmer

Hi! I am Karolina. I am a C++ programmer that specializes in DX12 graphics, which I study at Breda University of Applied Sciences. Currently I am looking for an internship for 2025 September.

Here you will be able to see my work, both in custom engines and UE5 :)