i love the idea of using masks to define materials and grime/scratches. it may take a bit more creativity out of the texturing process, but i think its a huge help with consistency.
I wish I could just hear some reasoning as to how this is actually viable. Clearly with UDK and the like this would be hella expensive.
Are they hedging their bets against the future? Do current high-end cards have enough throughput to handle something like this, even on current engines? Are they thinking that they could always bake down stuff for lower end systems, since their mobile support already has similar features? Or some other tech magic?
These guys aren't dumb. Clearly there's a plan here. It's an interesting way to utilize power - as it's clearly hedged towards making things easier to develop. But I guess it does end up having higher quality results as well. Interesting stuff!
On another note entirely:
What's actually going on with the 'grime' mask and what not? Does each individual material define some sort of "wear" or "grime" output? I mean shit, we've seen and tried stuff like this in the past and there is generally a sort of 'fakeness' to hard-edged definitions of different materials...they don't "blend" well, and it's hard to get the small details you want. They say as much in the video, but I'm not sure I understand how they are solving it, exactly.
Like for example the metal on the Leg armor. It clearly has all these scuffs and stuff, and looks great. They are NOT doing it in a way that there is a 'scuffed metal' and 'shiny metal in the color mask. They are using the 'grime' mask to define where those scuffs are. but where does the 'scuffed' look get defined - is that done per-material I guess?
I wish I could just hear some reasoning as to how this is actually viable. Clearly with UDK and the like this would be hella expensive.
Are they hedging their bets against the future? Do current high-end cards have enough throughput to handle something like this, even on current engines? Are they thinking that they could always bake down stuff for lower end systems, since their mobile support already has similar features?
These guys aren't dumb. Clearly there's a plan here. It's an interesting way to utilize power - as it's clearly hedged towards making things easier to develop. But I guess it does end up having higher quality results as well. Interesting stuff!
On another note entirely:
What's actually going on with the 'grime' mask and what not? Does each individual material define some sort of "wear" or "grime" output? I mean shit, we've seen and tried stuff like this in the past and there is generally a sort of 'fakeness' to hard-edged definitions of different materials...they don't "blend" well, and it's hard to get the small details you want. They say as much in the video, but I'm not sure I understand how they are solving it, exactly.
Like for example the metal on the Leg armor. It clearly has all these scuffs and stuff, and looks great. They are NOT doing it in a way that there is a 'scuffed metal' and 'shiny metal in the color mask. They are using the 'grime' mask to define where those scuffs are. but where does the 'scuffed' look get defined - is that done per-material I guess?
U4 is supposed to be nextgen, certainly not mobile as far as i know
I answered my own question by examining the shader in the video - they are defining 'scratch roughness' and 'grime roughness' and other things, at the individual material level. really cool.
Neox: All I meant was that UDK already has mobile stuff that bakes materials down into simpler forms - they have that tech already!
On another note entirely:
What's actually going on with the 'grime' mask and what not? Does each individual material define some sort of "wear" or "grime" output? I mean shit, we've seen and tried stuff like this in the past and there is generally a sort of 'fakeness' to hard-edged definitions of different materials...they don't "blend" well, and it's hard to get the small details you want. They say as much in the video, but I'm not sure I understand how they are solving it, exactly.
Like for example the metal on the Leg armor. It clearly has all these scuffs and stuff, and looks great. They are NOT doing it in a way that there is a 'scuffed metal' and 'shiny metal in the color mask. They are using the 'grime' mask to define where those scuffs are. but where does the 'scuffed' look get defined - is that done per-material I guess?
You set that stuff up. You don't have to have it, "grime," "scratches," etc are not pre-determined in the materials. You could make something without any of that, or include how ever many you want for how many mask textures you want to spend. It is not automated either, you create your textures to show where you want scratches.
for example, if you had a mirror with 0.05 roughness, and a scratch that had .95 roughness, the mask you input to blend between those (that you set up in the layers) makes it possible. That same mask is also then used to alter the color, and metallic properties if necessary. Along the way, you may decide you need some dirt caked on top of the surface, instead of only taking the surface away. You can then add more blends and properties to get dirt in there. I am only talking about a single layer with this example.
You could also have a Wood layer that has scratch & dirt inputs as well, and in the final material you define where wood and mirror go in either the same, or separate mask. If one day someone decides to add a color variation input to the wood layer, when its updated every material that uses it gets that input!
In all of your layers, if you keep it consistent, you will be able to do all dirt in one mask and apply it to all layers. or, if you dont need dirt anywhere else, but other layers require a mask, you can do whatever you want on the other uv islands. It gets a little confusing then, so its bet to be consistent
gir, I honestly haven't played with or used substance designer, so I wouldn't be able to say. only thing I'm familiar with using in the past few years was bitmap2material, and never on anything practical really, just experimenting. I've been meaning to try it out, need to! I missed it on sale on steam From watching the video on their site, its hard to tell without mucking around with it.
Jordan used Modo to paint textures frequently, some other people were trying Mari, I honestly stuck to Photoshop and projection painting in zbrush. With autoreimporting textures (available in UE3 too!), i never had to tab into the Editor, could paint, save, glance at 2nd monitor to see changes.
Zac: We used xNormal to bake the normal maps on that character, I've noticed that artifact before when using xNormal. other programs would not do the same thing. I'm not sure why or how its caused during the bake, but creates a crazy pyramid gradient effect on surfaces.
Good eye!
X shaped errors from baking are almost always because your triangulation of your baked meshed changed from the triangulation of the in game mesh. I sometimes forget to triangulate my mesh before baking because I am rushing and get these errors in engine, so I can see that happening. Or maybe that edge was turned after a bake happened, which might cause that also.
I use them soooo much more than I used kismet (which was admittedly almost never). You really can make playable games without touching code in many cases
Yeah he did amazing job with blueprints. Though it still boggles my mind why offset entire work to blueprint, when some tasks are easier achieved in C++.
Yeah he did amazing job with blueprints. Though it still boggles my mind why offset entire work to blueprint, when some tasks are easier achieved in C++.
Not everyone can code in C++ but a tech minded person might be easily able to understand blueprints and get the same or very similar results.
I'm wondering how the old Unrealscript stuff that has to do with networking and replication is handled now. Is that still Blueprints? Or did they move that to a lower-level?
Edit:
Also wondering about UI stuff. Is that still mostly Scaleform? They used to have an Unreal UI system, is that gone?
I'm wondering how the old Unrealscript stuff that has to do with networking and replication is handled now. Is that still Blueprints? Or did they move that to a lower-level?
Edit:
Also wondering about UI stuff. Is that still mostly Scaleform? They used to have an Unreal UI system, is that gone?
I will answer, that those are questions that can't be answered right now (;.
All I can say, you really should not worry. blueprint is more or less replacement for UnrealScript.
Sorry if this was asked before, I wasn't following UDK until recently. Will new UE4 development kit be available to general public like the current version? Were there specific release date besides it will be in 2014?
Sorry if this was asked before, I wasn't following UDK until recently. Will new UE4 development kit be available to general public like the current version? Were there specific release date besides it will be in 2014?
Yep, there will be an UE4 verison of the UDK. Not official date yet. I'm not even sure it was said it will be in 2014...
Sorry if this was asked before, I wasn't following UDK until recently. Will new UE4 development kit be available to general public like the current version? Were there specific release date besides it will be in 2014?
Yes there will be a free "UDK" version. Currently it is in closed beta testing, and no release date has been announced. I assume it is not that far off from what I have seen and heard about it.
...kinda lame that you can't try it out without paying for it.
C++ source code is pretty sick though especially and will definitely help indie developers out there. Royalties all the way down to 5% too (excluding the 20$ a month) is pretty insane too.
We tried to make it as simple as possible. It's $19 a month + 5% royalty. That's it. For that price, you get access to everything including the full engine source code. Cancel at any time, and continue using the version you have. Stay subscribed to get updates.
Apparently though you can unsubscribe at any time and still use the current version you have. You just have to resubscribe again to get an updated version.
Replies
yeah that was my concern. I am sure i could use mat functions to do it. I'll give it a try and see what I come up with.
Are they hedging their bets against the future? Do current high-end cards have enough throughput to handle something like this, even on current engines? Are they thinking that they could always bake down stuff for lower end systems, since their mobile support already has similar features? Or some other tech magic?
These guys aren't dumb. Clearly there's a plan here. It's an interesting way to utilize power - as it's clearly hedged towards making things easier to develop. But I guess it does end up having higher quality results as well. Interesting stuff!
On another note entirely:
What's actually going on with the 'grime' mask and what not? Does each individual material define some sort of "wear" or "grime" output? I mean shit, we've seen and tried stuff like this in the past and there is generally a sort of 'fakeness' to hard-edged definitions of different materials...they don't "blend" well, and it's hard to get the small details you want. They say as much in the video, but I'm not sure I understand how they are solving it, exactly.
Like for example the metal on the Leg armor. It clearly has all these scuffs and stuff, and looks great. They are NOT doing it in a way that there is a 'scuffed metal' and 'shiny metal in the color mask. They are using the 'grime' mask to define where those scuffs are. but where does the 'scuffed' look get defined - is that done per-material I guess?
U4 is supposed to be nextgen, certainly not mobile as far as i know
Neox: All I meant was that UDK already has mobile stuff that bakes materials down into simpler forms - they have that tech already!
You set that stuff up. You don't have to have it, "grime," "scratches," etc are not pre-determined in the materials. You could make something without any of that, or include how ever many you want for how many mask textures you want to spend. It is not automated either, you create your textures to show where you want scratches.
for example, if you had a mirror with 0.05 roughness, and a scratch that had .95 roughness, the mask you input to blend between those (that you set up in the layers) makes it possible. That same mask is also then used to alter the color, and metallic properties if necessary. Along the way, you may decide you need some dirt caked on top of the surface, instead of only taking the surface away. You can then add more blends and properties to get dirt in there. I am only talking about a single layer with this example.
You could also have a Wood layer that has scratch & dirt inputs as well, and in the final material you define where wood and mirror go in either the same, or separate mask. If one day someone decides to add a color variation input to the wood layer, when its updated every material that uses it gets that input!
In all of your layers, if you keep it consistent, you will be able to do all dirt in one mask and apply it to all layers. or, if you dont need dirt anywhere else, but other layers require a mask, you can do whatever you want on the other uv islands. It gets a little confusing then, so its bet to be consistent
gir, I honestly haven't played with or used substance designer, so I wouldn't be able to say. only thing I'm familiar with using in the past few years was bitmap2material, and never on anything practical really, just experimenting. I've been meaning to try it out, need to! I missed it on sale on steam
Jordan used Modo to paint textures frequently, some other people were trying Mari, I honestly stuck to Photoshop and projection painting in zbrush. With autoreimporting textures (available in UE3 too!), i never had to tab into the Editor, could paint, save, glance at 2nd monitor to see changes.
here's my bastardised version of the glorious work you guys are doing
Inside Unreal - Visual Effects - Part 1
[ame="
http://www.fxguide.com/featured/unreal-engine-4-next-gen-gaming-effects/
X shaped errors from baking are almost always because your triangulation of your baked meshed changed from the triangulation of the in game mesh. I sometimes forget to triangulate my mesh before baking because I am rushing and get these errors in engine, so I can see that happening. Or maybe that edge was turned after a bake happened, which might cause that also.
Inside Unreal - Visual Effects - Part 2
I have no idea how to embed this?
http://youtu.be/RURQSR788Dg
[ame="
Not everyone can code in C++ but a tech minded person might be easily able to understand blueprints and get the same or very similar results.
Edit:
Also wondering about UI stuff. Is that still mostly Scaleform? They used to have an Unreal UI system, is that gone?
I will answer, that those are questions that can't be answered right now (;.
All I can say, you really should not worry. blueprint is more or less replacement for UnrealScript.
Yes there will be a free "UDK" version. Currently it is in closed beta testing, and no release date has been announced. I assume it is not that far off from what I have seen and heard about it.
https://unrealengine.com/
https://www.unrealengine.com/
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/welcome-to-unreal-engine-4
Begin the awesomeness
So will there not be an Unreal Engine 4 UDK model? Any thoughts?
It's kinda strangely constructed.
C++ source code is pretty sick though especially and will definitely help indie developers out there. Royalties all the way down to 5% too (excluding the 20$ a month) is pretty insane too.
I would say it's worth it if it's bug free.
Well I guess that answers my question.
Source:
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/213517/Epic_radically_changes_licensing_model_for_Unreal_Engine.php