--- title: Introduction to Substrate - Episode 1 | daily.dev description: Substrate is Unreal Engine's new material authoring system, enabled by default in UE 5.7, that exposes lower-level PBR parameters (diffuse albedo, F0, F90) for... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/introduction-to-substrate---episode-1-sba6helrb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Introduction to Substrate - Episode 1 | daily.dev og:description: Substrate is Unreal Engine's new material authoring system, enabled by default in UE 5.7, that exposes lower-level PBR parameters (diffuse albedo, F0, F90) for... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/introduction-to-substrate---episode-1-sba6helrb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Sba6HeLRB.png og:image:alt: Introduction to Substrate - Episode 1 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Introduction to Substrate - Episode 1 **[Ben Cloward](https://daily.dev/sources/bencloward)** · 15 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Substrate is Unreal Engine's new material authoring system, enabled by default in UE 5.7, that exposes lower-level PBR parameters (diffuse albedo, F0, F90) for greater material flexibility. This introductory episode covers what Substrate is, how to enable it in project settings, the G-buffer memory implications (blendable vs. adaptive modes), and how to recreate existing base color/metallic/specular/roughness materials using the Substrate Slab node and the Substrate Metalness to Diffuse Color F0 helper node. Future episodes will dive deeper into the underlying parameter relationships and advanced material layering. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Check Out Free Substrate Materials for Automotive Rendering in UE 5.7](https://daily.dev/posts/check-out-free-substrate-materials-for-automotive-rendering-in-ue-5-7-ltkll4nje) · 80 LEVEL · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [Get over 280 production-ready automotive Substrate materials for UE 5.7—free on Fab](https://daily.dev/posts/get-over-280-production-ready-automotive-substrate-materials-for-ue-5-7-free-on-fab-u5eg6br4o) · Unreal Engine · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#unreal-engine](https://daily.dev/tags/unreal-engine) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/introduction-to-substrate---episode-1-sba6helrb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Introduction to Substrate - Episode 1","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/introduction-to-substrate---episode-1-sba6helrb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/introduction-to-substrate---episode-1-sba6helrb"},"datePublished":"2026-07-30T15:21:15.715Z","dateModified":"2026-07-30T15:21:35.596Z","description":"Substrate is Unreal Engine's new material authoring system, enabled by default in UE 5.7, that exposes lower-level PBR parameters (diffuse albedo, F0, F90) for...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/P5I38f2O6W8/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/P5I38f2O6W8/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Ben Cloward","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Ben Cloward","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--0AMNmg3_--/f_auto,q_auto/v1769283303/logos/bencloward","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/bencloward"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/introduction-to-substrate---episode-1-sba6helrb","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"game-development,unreal-engine","timeRequired":"PT15M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"Introduction to Substrate - Episode 1","description":"Substrate is Unreal Engine's new material authoring system, enabled by default in UE 5.7, that exposes lower-level PBR parameters (diffuse albedo, F0, F90) for...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/P5I38f2O6W8/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-07-30T15:21:15.715Z","duration":"PT15M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/Sba6HeLRB","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/P5I38f2O6W8"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Ben Cloward","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/bencloward"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Introduction to Substrate - Episode 1"}]} ```