https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/RenderingAndGraphics/Materials/

(Documentation definition) A Material is an asset that can be applied to a mesh to control the visual look of the scene. At a high level, it is probably easiest to think of a Material as the "paint" that is applied to an object. But even that can be a little misleading, since a Material literally defines the type of surface from which your object appears to be made. You can define its color, how shiny it is, whether you can see through the object, and much more.

In more technical terms, when light from the scene hits the surface, a Material is used to calculate how that light interacts with that surface. These calculations are done using incoming data that is input to the Material from a variety of images (textures) and math expressions, as well as from various property settings inherent to the Material itself.

Tools and Editors in Unreal:

• Material Editor (can be used independently of other tools, which have a support role to it)
• Material Function
• Material Layer
• Material Instance
• Parameters Collection:
• HLSL

Material Editor

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/RenderingAndGraphics/Materials/Editor/

Utilizes building blocks which we call expressions. Materials can quickly become overwhelming: math based operations and large networks of expressions.

Numbers in the editor are colors (1 means white!).

Focus on common expressions first.

Expressions and Common Combinations:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/RenderingAndGraphics/Materials/ExpressionReference/#:~:text=Material Expressions are the building,the results of that operation.

(briefly)