Manual Material Setup

VA components auto-generate materials with a specific setup to drive vertex animation. If you want to use your own custom materials at runtime, you need to understand how the component manages its internals and follow a manual setup process.

How the VA Component Works

The VA component manages three things internally:

• Static Mesh: A special mesh that contains baked animation data. Use Set Animation Mesh Index to swap between meshes in a multi-mesh collection. Never use Set Static Mesh directly — it will break the animation pipeline.
• Materials: Dynamic material instances are auto-created at play to drive animation parameters. You can retrieve them in Blueprint and set your own parameters on top.
• Custom Data Floats (ISM): The first 12 custom data float slots are reserved for the animation system. Only configure these through the VAT Asset — do not write to them directly on instanced mesh components.

Setting Up a Custom Material

To create a material that is compatible with the vertex animation system:

1. Add the Vertex Animation Layer Asset to your material
2. Create a Material Instance from that material
3. In the Material Instance, set bIsVAT to true in the Layer Parameters (this is a static switch that enables the vertex animation logic)

Overriding Materials at Runtime

Materials defined in the VA Asset Collection are applied automatically when play begins. There is currently no dedicated “Override Materials” slot on the component itself.

To override materials at runtime in Blueprint:

1. In Event BeginPlay, call Get Dynamic Materials on the VA component to retrieve the auto-created dynamic material instances
2. Use Set Parameter Value on the returned materials to apply your custom parameter values (textures, colors, scalars, etc.)

Caution

Important guidelines to avoid breaking the animation system:

• Don’t use Set Static Mesh — always use Set Animation Mesh Index to swap meshes. Using Set Static Mesh directly bypasses the animation pipeline and will break playback.
• Don’t modify the first 12 Custom Data Floats on ISM components — these slots are reserved for the animation system. Only configure custom data through the VAT Asset.
• Stick to functions in the “Vertex Animation” category — these are designed to work correctly with the animation pipeline. Using generic static mesh functions may produce unexpected results.

See Also

• VA Mesh Component - Single-instance vertex animation playback
• VA Instanced Mesh Component - Multi-instance vertex animation
• VA Asset Collection - The asset type containing mesh and animation data