# Art & VFX

A look that shades itself.

Materials built graph-by-graph, particles simulated system-by-system, scenes lit
actor-by-actor — with reference knowledge baked in so the result actually respects PBR
rules and particle budgets instead of just looking good in one screenshot.

## Materials (66 actions)

*PBR graphs, written like code.*

Creates materials, instances and material functions from scratch — builds whole PBR graphs
programmatically, drops in custom HLSL, imports textures straight into slots, batch-edits
dozens of instances at once, renders previews without leaving the session, and checks
compilation and shader complexity before calling it done.

Covers: PBR graph building, Custom HLSL, Material instances, Texture import, Previews,
Validation.

## Material Reference

*The rules, so nothing gets broken.*

Quick-reference PBR rules, HLSL gotchas and performance budgets that load on demand — the
guardrails keeping AI-authored materials physically plausible and inside frame budget,
instead of gorgeous and unshippable.

Covers: PBR rules, HLSL gotchas, Perf budgets.

## Niagara VFX (129 actions)

*Particles with a full lifecycle.*

Full system and emitter lifecycle with override-preserving module edits, dynamic inputs,
event handlers, simulation stages, per-quality scalability, renderer presets for trails,
beams, lightning and ribbons — plus system diffing, so you can actually see what changed
and why your effect suddenly looks different.

Covers: Systems & emitters, Dynamic inputs, Sim stages, Ribbon presets, Scalability, System
diff.

## Niagara Reference

*Budgets before beauty.*

Simulation rules, particle budgets and known gotchas as on-demand reference — so effects
stay performant across every quality level instead of melting the GPU on ship day.

Covers: Sim rules, Particle budgets, Gotchas.

## Lighting

*Sunrise to safe room.*

The five actors that light most exteriors — sun, sky light, sky atmosphere, height fog,
clouds — placed and wired in one pass, then interiors lit point by point in real colour
temperature. Lumen GI and reflections, post-process exposure, reflection captures and
lightmap bakes are all reachable. Best part: your AI can measure what it just did. Light
coverage per room, luminance at any point, dark corners found automatically, and harsh
bright-to-dark transitions flagged along a path a player will actually walk.

Covers: Outdoor sky rig, Lumen GI, Exposure & post-process, Colour temperature, Light
coverage analysis, Lightmap bakes.

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One of 7 skill categories in Shovel, an Unreal Engine editor plugin and MCP server. HTML
version: https://shovel.to/art-vfx/. Site index for agents: https://shovel.to/llms.txt.