Every project there are a few things you need to do every time. Usually, this is creating a material library. Tedious, but it's important to get it right at the start as having to change this stuff can be a time-consuming nightmare. Having a set of standardised Master Materials to import into the project can really save a lot of time. I have a few different sets including some crazy advanced materials and functions. But more on that later. Today is all about the Basics.
The 'Lite' set up is day 1 stuff. This is the basic input for setting up the materials in Unreal. No parameter-driven controls or tints, just the maps:
Below, we have the same set-up but with some controls, perfect for material instancing. Texture coordinates for scaling are placed in the custom UV pin as this is a bit cheaper than individually adding it to all the textures:
So, it's all working but it needs a little bit of optimisation. 3D texture software like Substance Painter can output combined Maps called ORMS. These are mostly industry standard with the RGB channels used in the same way, but if you combine them yourself, you can use any channel for anything. This can be as lite as you want or as heavy. But don't be fooled into thinking that having a super master material with everything is the go-to for all your needs. If the texture artist has done a spot-on job and you don't need to alter anything then just use a lite material. This will not only optimise your project but also reduce the file size when shipping. Some background assets only really need an Albedo and a tint!
Masked Materials are cheaper than Transulcent (and if shipping on mobile / VR, use Additive rather than Translucent.)
This material set-up is the same as the ORMs basic but it's using an opacity mask. Usually, this can be applied to the Alpha in the Albedo texture but using a switch we can also add it later as a separate mask without having to redo work. It's good to plan out the material structures at the start of the project and stick to the same workflow for all artists: 
Sometimes you need World Aligned Textures. Here the texture maps are separated into different parameter texture objects. Usually, you'll only need an Albedo and normal but it's possible to depending on the asset requirements:
When tiling in world space you can notice repetition of you're not careful. You can add noise maps to the base colour but also combine a second set of maps with a different UV scale to create better textures:
This is probably as far as I would go with the basic materials. It's best to start creating Material functions to optimise the workflow and create better material organisation. Which leads me nicely into my next blog post.
If you want to speed up your workflow and download my Basic Master Materials, you can do so here. They have been built in 4.27 and you can just drop them into the project contents folder.