Dynamic Fake Liquid in a Bottle - UE Material - Updated 2024

WARNING: I do not provide any support for the product, it is offered 'as is', you are free to use it in your projects (both personal and commercial) and alter it to your liking!

HL Alyx-like bottle material.

Inside you will find a project for both UE 4.26 and UE 5.1.1, containing bottle material, example bottle assets and a demo scene.

This is a material for Unreal Engine that can render fake volumetric dynamic liquid on an opaque bottle surface, no real transparency used.

• Liquid gets agitated showing bubbles and foam if you shake\move\rotate the bottle.
• The acceleration value needed for agitation is calculated in a blueprint and then passed to the material.
• The material supports a wide variety of parameter customization, you can change glass and liquid color, the intensity of agitation, bubbles intensity and size, etc.
• The transparency effect is fake, it's exploiting Clear Coat shading model and it's not precise and can be buggy, it heavily relies on having cubemaps\reflection captures in your scene. The material is rendered as opaque and does not support seeing any dynamic lights through the bottle.

Changelog:

• Version 1.2: Improved fake transparency effect. Now what you're seeing through the bottle should correctly line up with your current cubemap in the scene.
• Version 1.1: Added UE5 project.
• Version 1.0: Initial release.