Unreal Engine 3 - MASTER THREAD [Archive] - Page 3

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

07-22-2009, 10:32 PM

The tutorials that come with collectors edition UT3 are really helpful for people who are just starting out. I'm not going to get into the whole "illegal download thing" but I'm sure... if you looked... you could download them somewhere.

I've been thinking about getting Gears of War for PC... anybody have an opinion on the overall advantage or disadvantage of making a map for GOW instead of UT3?

Thanks.

If you go to 3DBuzz.com (http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_home.php) you can sign up for a free membership and then stream all the tutorials for UT3 and UT2kX. If you want to do any really cool cut scenes or mass invasion style maps then GOW is, IMOP, better than UT3 but I would just learn them both.

I have no idea if I have asked this or not, if I have please forgive me, its been a long 2 months

Is their any way to turn off the weapons and Hud, I was going to add custom weapons and Hud to my mod project but I don't have time so I am just going to remove them for the sake of presentation, plus it stands out like a sore thumb in the Steam Punk Environment I am aiming for.

Thanks for any help

I think the command you are looking for is toggleHUD and then I think you have to feed it a 1 or 0 to turn it on or off. But I am not 100% sure if that is the command or not as the Example game I am looking at while I write this does not have a HUD so I can not verfiy if that works or not.

I'm working on a test scene, and I'd like to fake dynamic, soft-shadows using a light function in UE3 (unless there's a way to get actual soft-shadows, penumbra shadows, etc.). Are there any need-to-knows to achieve this look? I've used light functions before, and hopefully the desired effect will be achieved. However, I'm just a little curious how the baked lighting and light functions is going to look together.

Depending on the version of unreal you are using there's a way to get actual soft-shadows, penumbra shadows, shadows through the alpha of static meshes, ect. But at the moment you have to be an Unreal Dev to even mess around with it....But there is something that you can do to allow you to get better shadows than the stock ones.

In your light setting there should be a couple of drop boxes towards the bottom of the light settings that effect the way that the light cast shadows. The first one that you will come across should be the modulated shadows drop down box. Changing this to (Depending on your version of the engine) modulate or modulate better should make the shadows in the player LE (Light Environment) crisper and more defined with a simi-soft edge.

After you have messed around with though settings you should then take a look at the shadow filter quality and the shadow Projection Technique. I could go into great detail about what they each do but I dont have the time ATM so just mess around with thoes settings and you should get something similar to what you are looking for.

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

07-22-2009, 10:58 PM

just ran into another snag.

using the custom lighting node, stops me using the standard normal/diffuse/spec nodes for the "normal" material aspects.

i feel like i'm in a bit over my head, but i'll keep bashing on through.

Ah dont feel to bad if you really want to wrap your head around it read the following book.

Shaders for Game Artist and Programmers (http://books.google.com/books?id=iggJf7oIly8C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=Shaders+for+game+artist+and+programmes&source=bl&ots=kqXl0RCOcW&sig=CZG73KU2F6sJ5SNShWY8x-FkCsg&hl=en&ei=tftnSujvCpTQtgPjicmmBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1)

yes you'll have to create your own diffuse inside your custom shading, see the tut, i have specularmasks, diffuse, cubemaps etc right inside the custom lighting ;)

I Actually add this shader to one of the games my studio is working on and I did get this to work the same way but with out feeding everything into the custom lighting node. In mine I have it set up the normal way that you would go about setting up a shader. I will post it tomorrow as I still need to make comments in it.

is there any way to get hold of the bitangent calculators unreal uses?

apparently x-normal is too different to unreal for there to be any kind of seamless solution.

Try inverting your projection axis in the Y direction when you are generating your normal maps. I am pretty sure its that direction that needs to be changed to so Unreal reads it correctly...I ran into this issue a long time ago if memory servers me correctly and that is what I did to fix it. If that does not post your normal map your are having issues with so I can take a look.

Jesse Moody

07-24-2009, 08:07 PM

Nevermind it was a typo that stopped things from compiling.

Harryscary276

07-25-2009, 02:52 PM

Okay one more question and I will be leaving yall alone about this for a while lol, though this one is a doosy

I am having a problem with Unreal ed reading my script, it wont

now what I do is I run my game type mod and map unpublished (copy editor shortcut and in properties replace editor on the path with -useunpublished)

Now I have my map and package in Custommaps in CookedPC in the unpublished directory (or the other way around, sorry if I got it wrong) and the script file in the same directory as Custommaps and my code in SRC-Modname-Classes

Now when I hit my Run Unpublished link I get a message saying it is using my my mods level package instead of my script to run the game, now it works, I can select my game type and then the map and they both have the preview image I have set up but it does not have anything involing the script, just what I was able to make in the editor

Now my friends told me to put my maps and package in a file with my mods name (as I have been typing it everywhere else) in the same directory as the Custommaps and script file, I did and then I got a message saying it is now using my script instead of the package, sounds like I wanted right, but when I go into the game I choose my cutom game type, then the map to go with it, then I get the loading screen and that is it, it stopps at the load screen, it is not a lock up, it just keeps loading.

Now what I am thinking is that is does not know where to fine the package and level file because the preview image is not there when I am selecting Game type and level, that is what I think anyway

Either way that is the problem, I need to use both script and level/package but I can only get one or the other to work, not both at the same time, any help would be appreciated

Thanks again

DEElekgolo

07-26-2009, 09:44 AM

What is a good way to get some vignetting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vignetting) in the unreal engine?

Neox

07-26-2009, 02:02 PM

thats just a simple posteffekt of a mask multiplied on the scene

Neox

07-27-2009, 05:10 AM

hrrrrm how do i activate a trigger with another trigger? triggers don't have an input but what i would like to do is enabling them only when another trigger has been hit first. hmmmmm kismet help lacks a lot of informations :/

nevermind found a tutorial...

RawRanator

07-28-2009, 02:20 PM

So i was looking for something about toon shaders in unreal but i didn't find anything in the thread, i might have overlooked it or didn't read far enough. could someone point me in the right direction?

MegaMoogle

07-29-2009, 07:44 AM

Does anyone know where I can find some good tutorials on how to make some believable metal (preferably gold) shaders with the material editor?

Neox

07-29-2009, 08:02 AM

could someone point me in the right direction?
http://www.moddb.com/members/polyphobia/tutorials

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

07-29-2009, 08:59 AM

http://www.moddb.com/members/polyphobia/tutorials

This is a good tutorial I just added this style of phong rim/specular lighting to one of the games that my studio is working on.

Neox

07-29-2009, 10:37 AM

haha the specular term is imho the weakest part, i totally changed it for airborn :D

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

07-29-2009, 10:52 AM

Does anyone know where I can find some good tutorials on how to make some believable metal (preferably gold) shaders with the material editor?

Here you go I made this for you real fast at work. Its a very basic gold but with a little tweaking it should do what you want it to. Let me know if there is something that you don't understand and I will explain it a little better.

http://www.samdeiter.com/images/basic_gold_shader.jpg

MegaMoogle

07-29-2009, 01:19 PM

Here you go I made this for you real fast at work. Its a very basic gold but with a little tweaking it should do what you want it to. Let me know if there is something that you don't understand and I will explain it a little better.

http://www.samdeiter.com/images/basic_gold_shader.jpg

Thanks again for your help, Billy! I'll definitely use this :)

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

07-29-2009, 01:44 PM

Thanks again for your help, Billy! I'll definitely use this :)

No worries hope it help:)

Calypso75

07-30-2009, 03:11 PM

Just a heads up.
It appears Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3 is now in stock at Amazon. I just ordered a copy and should be here on Tuesday :) .

LlamaJuice

07-30-2009, 11:05 PM

Hey there, is there any way to export a static mesh from an uncooked package to a format that I can take it back into Maya? Maya crashed and I have the nearly finished static ingame. Or is there any way to re import my ASE into Maya to be able to use that? Thanks!

Neox

07-31-2009, 08:08 AM

select it in editor end export it as stl or obj, but its not guaranteed that the data that comes out is really good

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

07-31-2009, 09:24 AM

select it in editor end export it as stl or obj, but its not guaranteed that the data that comes out is really good

The way that I have found to get around this is to first open whatever I exported out of Unreal in side of Milkshpae 3D (http://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/) and then re-export to a .3DS or .OBJ. The reason that I use Milkshape is because for some reason it tends to handle the direction of the vertex normals better than Max can.

RawRanator

07-31-2009, 10:51 AM

Thanks Neox!

Neox

08-02-2009, 01:21 PM

is there any way to get a light function to work with a light that uses a modulated lightshadowmode?

Jonathan

08-04-2009, 05:21 AM

Is it possible to create your own screen effects (like someone mentioned vignetting earlier, and perhaps film grain, chromatic aberration, etc).

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

08-04-2009, 10:41 AM

Is it possible to create your own screen effects (like someone mentioned vignetting earlier, and perhaps film grain, chromatic aberration, etc).

Yes you can create a material that you can then apply to your screen via the post process chain.

Mechadus

08-04-2009, 06:30 PM

Apologies if this has already been asked, but I didnt see it...

Is there any way to update/replace static meshes? My fav workflow in max is to block stuff out, and replace blockmodels with finished pieces one by one. I assume its possible in Unreal to place static meshes and then later replace the source mesh, thus updating all the instances in the editor... or do you really have to delete and re-position for every update?

-N

Ben Apuna

08-04-2009, 11:58 PM

@Mechadus:

To update your static meshes just reimport the ase files into your package. As long as they've got the same name they will replace what you've already got in there. Since meshes in the level are just referencing the meshes from the package they get updated automatically. Just make sure you don't change the mesh's pivot location as that will mess up the placement of your meshes in the level.

Mechadus

08-05-2009, 08:58 AM

Of course I dont try the most obvious way lol. Thanks Ben!

-N!

Neox

08-05-2009, 01:44 PM

Is it possible to create your own screen effects (like someone mentioned vignetting earlier, and perhaps film grain, chromatic aberration, etc).

as billy said, sure you can do it, if you know how it works you can just create a material set it up to be unlit and plug it in your own postprocess chain, in fact vignette was a nice point, airborn has it now ;)

Jonathan

08-05-2009, 07:13 PM

Where can I get further information on creating your own postprocess chain? Using UT3/UnrealEd, that is.

Neox

08-06-2009, 01:03 AM

ricgtclick in the package where you want it and create such a chain, you can add materials to it and also change the dof, bloom, color balance settings etc.
hacking it into ut without your own mod is a bit tricky and hacky and bad because it tends to crash, so a new mod with your data in it would definitely help you with that, then you can activate it in the utengine ini i think

Jonathan

08-06-2009, 02:28 AM

Wow, cool, thanks! :D

cycloverid

08-12-2009, 01:53 AM

I asked this question a little while ago in crazyfinger's thread, which was probably fairly rude.

My problem is that I want to be efficient with my UV space, but Unreal seems to not like this. If a shell is reversed and overlayed, the lighting is also reversed. I'm not sure if this just has to do with the normal map, but it shouldn't be effecting all the areas it does.

Here is an example of a chair prop I made a while ago, which I fixed the normal seam like shown in that tutorial thread here (so I doubt this is the problem):

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/Chair.jpg
(as you can see, the lighting is dark on one side and light on the other)

Is it a lightmap problem? I've seen Unreal props that reverse shells and it renders out okay.

Thanks for looking.

Ben Apuna

08-12-2009, 03:26 AM

Hey cycloveried Unreal pretty much hates normal maps + UV seams, but mirroring can still be done. Have you baked lighting on that chair? Have you made a 2nd channel UV set for your lightmap bake? I believe you cannot mirror UVs in the lightmap channel. It may also be necessary to merge the those two shells in the lightmap UV channel.

EDIT: I forgot to mention one other thing, you need to mirror your UVs left-right not up-down.

cycloverid

08-12-2009, 05:15 AM

Thanks for the reply Ben.

This is frustrating for me, because it seems like I'm the only one having problems!

So, I decided to do another test. This box is split down the middle, one side having a reversed shell (left-to-right // top-to-bottom). The texture is tile-able with diffuse/normal/spec. Channel 0 UV's are overlayed, while channel 1 UV's are not overlapping. Here are the results:

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/box1.jpg

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/box2.jpg

Inversed Top-to-Bottom UV's breaks it?

Ben Apuna

08-12-2009, 05:28 AM

EDIT:

You need to split your lightmap UVs along the same seams made by mirroring on the 1st channel UVs.

Ignore this text, I'm just leaving it here so the conversation in the following posts makes sense:

Those are the lightmap UVs right? I think if you merged those shells it might work out ok.

You also need to mirror the triangulation for the parts of the mesh that will have mirrored UVs as well, if you're not doing it already.

It may sound strange but I believe Unreal also takes the orientation of the UVs into account when shading things.

EDIT:

Here's an example of mirroring UVs in Unreal.

http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss273/bapuna/mirroredUVsInUnreal-1.jpg

EDIT 2:

This is what happens if you mirror your UVs the wrong way.

http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss273/bapuna/mirroredUVsInUnreal2.jpg

Slainean

08-13-2009, 08:36 AM

Ben - After testing both, it looks like the difference between mirroring horizontally and vertically is that the horizontal seam isnt as severe. On the UDN, however, they actually recommend you split the lightmaps at the mirroring seam. I tried this, too, and it reduces the specular seam with the slight tradeoff of a lightmap seam.

cycloverid - I had/have this problem and I got frustrated enough to just leave it be, however these two links explained a lot.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/LightMapUnwrapping.html
http://gearsforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?p=26161072

It gets somewhat complex, but to quote the UDN: "In general, Vertex light maps are the only way to completely avoid a seam." There are obvious seams all over UT3, so to me that says you just have to deal with it, although you can minimize it somewhat. Blame Epic.

Here's a comparison of the object I had trouble with:

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/3054/ue3mirrorseams.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ue3mirrorseams.jpg)

Ben Apuna

08-13-2009, 06:25 PM

Thanks Slainean, cool info about the lightmap UVs. I really should read the updated info on UDN from time to time, the last time I went through it all was in late 2006 :poly136: I had assumed that the lightmap UVs would be better if not split. I'll have to check this out.

cycloverid

08-14-2009, 03:36 PM

Thanks to both of you.

Slainean: That first link is exactly what I was looking for! I had that favorited before, but I never got around to reading it and then lost it. :poly136:

Thanks again.

Minos

08-17-2009, 05:50 AM

Hey guys.

I've been using UED for some time now. It's quite a nice editor, sometimes a bit too old fashionable but quite enjoyable overall. However, I'm having a bit of a trouble with lighting. I modelled a few generic modular pieces to block out my level (sidewalks, cubes, walls, etc...) and they look terribly wrong when I throw in some simple lighting. I tried vertex lighting at first but some vertices which share the same exact space look either really bright or pitch black. They are quite tessellated and line up perfectly to each other, so it doesn't make much sense. I know the limitations of vertex lighting, I just wanted my pieces to be lit evenly :S

OK I then proceeded to lightmap those meshes. I also removed some of the loops as they weren't really needed anymore. The problem still persists though and my lightmaps also look pretty bad, with seams visible in some places and other places being lit correctly. Here's an screenshot of the lightmapped version:

Blue = Also happens in the vertexlit version | Green = UVs problems
http://www.thiagoklafke.com/misc/temp/unreal_lighting_problem_01.jpg
http://www.thiagoklafke.com/misc/temp/unreal_lighting_problem_02.jpg
http://www.thiagoklafke.com/misc/temp/unreal_lighting_problem_03.jpg

A montage showing the UVs for the lightmapped cube and the same meshes prepared for vertex lighting only. At first I thought the lighting artifacts on the cube was due to the seams being too close to the UV's borders so I scaled them down a bit and they still look the same in the editor.
http://www.thiagoklafke.com/misc/temp/unreal_lighting_problem_04.jpg

Does anyone know how to work around this?

Ben Apuna

08-17-2009, 06:04 AM

Minos

08-17-2009, 06:27 AM

One of the problems I see with your lightmap UVs is that they are too close together, the different shells need to be 3 or more pixels apart to avoid bleeding from each other.

Here's a nice light mapping tutorial by Stephen Jameson which explains the issue.

http://stephenjameson.com/tutorials/lightmap-uvs-tutorial/

Ohh that's quite useful thanks a lot!

I stitched all my seams together because I read somewhere that the less seams the better. But it does not seem to be the case for lightmap uvs.

The vertex lighting inconsistencies still persist though.

Ben Apuna

08-17-2009, 06:49 AM

Yeah I used to think so too, lightmap UVs appear to like seams. I need to correct the images in my previous posts so no one else gets led astray.

EDIT:

Ok, fixed up my example image and post.

Sandro

08-20-2009, 03:16 AM

Are there any other ways of getting UnrealED viewport images other than printscreen button? E.g. some hires shots of environments e.t.c

Ben Apuna

08-20-2009, 03:44 AM

Yep, tiledshot (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TakingScreenshots.html) enjoy!

Sandro

08-20-2009, 05:31 AM

Thanks Ben, exactly what I was looking for :thumbup:

Minos

08-23-2009, 06:22 PM

Alright I was following the 3d buzz video tutorials and came across the same errors with vertex lit meshes I described above again. The funny thing is that 3d buzz's meshes look perfect.

http://thiagoklafke.com/misc/temp/unreal_lighting_problem_05.jpg

This is really pissing me off :(

Slainean

08-23-2009, 10:43 PM

Minotaur0 - After looking at the UDN, it looks like the shadows are averaging on those beams. The fix might be to turn off bUseSubdivisions. Check it out:

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/LightingReference.html#Lighting%20Subdivisions

As for the problem you had earlier, I've fixed a similar problem by lowering the Subdivisionstepsize under Advanced Lighting, but that was for a small tiling prop. Maybe play with the min/maxsubdivisions as well?

http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UT3_Asset_Lighting_Tweaking_Tutorial.html

Neox

08-24-2009, 04:37 AM

UT3_Ass_Tutorial
damn its only vertex lighting :(

Minos

08-29-2009, 02:58 PM

Slainean

08-29-2009, 05:30 PM

Awesome, glad that worked.

maestro

08-31-2009, 07:16 AM

@ Slainean - thanks man, great tutorials on your site! I am going to pour over the lighting ones as I have some skeletal meshes that are not accepting light for some reason.

Slainean

08-31-2009, 11:37 AM

That's not my site nor my tutorials, but I agree they are great. :) Just passing info along, that's all.

maestro

08-31-2009, 11:51 AM

I have written a program that analyses some text I input and then spits out a text file I can import into facefx durring analysis. I do this because I do not like the default facial movement facefx gives me using their default curve name. I have used facefx for a while in a workflow that suits my needs but have yet to learn some of the more advanced features due to a lack of public information.

I was wondering if there was a way to call multiple curves for a single phonym like right now my text file says this...

i["Jaw_Down"v1=0 easein=0.1 easeout=0.1][/Jaw_Down]
v["EF"v1=0 easein=0.1 easeout=0.1][/EF]
y["OU"v1=0 easein=0.1 easeout=0.1][/OU]
ou["OU"v1=0 easein=0.1 easeout=0.1][/OU]

I would like to assign "Jaw_Down" and "Eyes_Left" when the character says "if"

if this is possible, how is this represented in the syntax?

lastly, If there are facefx resources out there can someone send me a link?

nrek

09-02-2009, 09:26 PM

Hey guys what does it mean when the realtime preview check box on your mat nodes turns red. It just started doing this too all my materials for some reason. I can't really find any negative effects that it is having on my level but its making me uneasy since I don't know what it means.

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1533/matwtf.jpg

Slainean

09-02-2009, 10:22 PM

Edit: It just means you toggled the expression realtime preview on (the eye icon up top).

Double Edit: It looks like it makes all your nodes realtime instead of setting them individually, I guess.

nrek

09-02-2009, 10:37 PM

Haha thx Slainean! I feel like a complete noob now. :poly124:

Zotter

09-03-2009, 11:08 AM

I've checked out the thread and couldn't find it previously, but is there a way to get opacity in unreal besides just black or white, I'm looking to do a really fine mesh netting like stalkings. In max I have it at a dark light grey. Wondering if I can get this in unreal.

ParoXum

09-03-2009, 11:22 AM

Yeah but it wont benefit from the same lighting abilities as masked alpha shaders. But I guess someone more experienced might help you more about it.

Ben Apuna

09-03-2009, 06:17 PM

@Zotter:

You can plug your alpha texture into the "Opacity" input of your material instead of "OpacityMask". Then you change the BlendMode of the material to BLEND_Translucent and your LightingModel to MLM_Unlit. What you end up with is a translucent material with the full range of opacity. The problem is that it cannot use the MLM_Phong LightingModel so it won't be lit properly like everything else.

If someone has figured out to make a lit tranlucent material I'd love to know too.

Oniram

09-04-2009, 06:00 AM

hey everyone. i just got unreal 3 the other day and have been messing around with it for quite some time. currently i am working on a dead space scene that i would like to eventually bring into the engine. this is what brings me to my question.

in my scene i am currently working on a hologram projector, in 3ds max i am using the particle system to make this projector act as a free floating sprite, so that it will always face the camera. is there any way to do this in unreal?

crazyfingers

09-04-2009, 06:03 AM

someone probably knows this better than i do, but you could make it a particle, particles always face the camera by default i believe.

Oniram

09-04-2009, 07:02 AM

ah, but what i specifically need to do is have 1 free floating particle that has an animated texture.

ParoXum

09-04-2009, 10:53 AM

yeah a still particle would work. Apply a material to it, or a flipbook.

Oniram

09-05-2009, 06:58 AM

ok. ill be giving that a shot later today.

Autocon

09-05-2009, 10:32 PM

Have two questions about UT3 mitmapping large textures and down rezing them like crap.

Now I read earlier that Neox said he was able to get around this by changing his textures to DXT5 instead of the DXT1 compression and enabling Skybox in the texture group.

I tried this but I still get my textures down rezed extremely badly every time I close UT3. 4 and 2k textures look as if they are 1k or 512 and it dosnt update if I actually play the game.

I also tried the LOD -1 thing mentioned in a post or two after but that didnt seem to save it either. I seem to need to click the Never Streamed check mark on each of my textures (this dosnt save on shut down and will have to reimport textures again).

Is there a way to force them to stay uncompressed? I am just making a small scene and I dont need to worry about mitmapping and memory so much as its just an environment peice.

Should I save my textures out as a DXT5 texture straight from photoshop instead of just a TGA?

Secondly is there a way to force downrezing not to happen in a scene or set the distance? I get noticable texture downrezing pops even when I am extreamly close to an asset. It seems to only use my full rez texture if I am standing pretty much on it. Moving like 5 feet from any asset will make it drop.

Thanks,
-Auto

nrek

09-07-2009, 03:12 PM

I am having some weird problems with my lightmaps, I read through all the previous posts on the last page about this stuff but I still cant figure it out. It seems like when I import my mesh into unreal it is shifting random uv chunks around, resulting in lots of overlapping. I thought maybe it was doing it because my uvs were not spread out enough, so I did a quick uv pack to get even spacing and test to see if that was the problem. But aftter importing that into unreal it still decided to shift stuff around. Any one know whats going on?

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/8313/ughg.jpg

Slainean

09-07-2009, 04:02 PM

Autocon - As far as I understand it, streaming assets is a core design of UE3, so it's a pain if you want to work around it. Like you said, I usually turn the LODBias to -1 for all my textures. I remember reading about a trick where you check defer compression when you import the textures, then uncheck defer compression before saving. I haven't ever tried it yet, but maybe it's been patched out. Basically, there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

nrek - Obvious question, but are your lightmap UVs set to channel 2 or 3 in Max? Unreal considers 0 to be channel 1, and in that pic your lightmap UVs are set to 2, which is the same as channel 3 in Max. Also keep in mind that you can have multiple UVs for your textures/materials on one mesh, but the lightmap UVs must be shared for the whole mesh.

nrek

09-07-2009, 04:21 PM

Sorry I should have mentioned I had 3 uvs to begin with. Channel 0 in unreal (1 in max) is my base textures, channel 1 in unreal (2 in max) is a second channel for a blend material to add grunge over the tiled textures. Channel 2 in unreal (3 in max) is for the light map. And everything is laid out to be unique in the lightmap, with all the seams cut to match the base materials symmetry lines.

Slainean

09-07-2009, 07:09 PM

That's definitely weird. The only thing I can think of is resetting xforms, making sure everything is within the 0-1 space, and all that good stuff. Maybe max is corrupting the model somehow. Hopefully someone more experienced will know what's up. :\

nrek

09-07-2009, 09:32 PM

Thx Slainean, unfortunately resetting the X-form didn't work, clearing all the uvs and then reimporting the uvw files 1 by 1 didnt work, merging the object into a new file didnt work. BUT I did fix it. I had to export 3 copies of the meshas objs, each with one of the three uv channels set as their 1st uv channel. I imported them all into a new file then when they were in there I had to open all their unwraps and save each of them out as uvs1 uvs2 uvs3, I could then take those uv files and load them into the uv slots of a sinlge main mesh that was then imported into unreal. What a pain in the ass.

ImSlightlyBored

09-08-2009, 01:39 AM

you some times need to flush lightmap information by hitting UV Co ords back to 0 and back to what you want, else when you reimport a mesh it'll bake horribly. Bad bug!
Give that a go and check the static mesh instance isnt over-ridden to static lighting res of 0

PixelMasher

09-08-2009, 02:01 AM

yea exactly anytime you change the lightmap uvs, you gotta set it to another channel after importing, rebake then switch it back and bake again for ti to pick up the new uvs. this is a super lame bug in unreal and it even was happening using beast a while back.

ImSlightlyBored

09-08-2009, 05:09 AM

They seem to have fixed it recently with new builds though
PS it was a feature

ivan0v

09-08-2009, 09:57 AM

Hello, i'am doing some vegetation stuff in Unreal atm (tropical island). So my textures rely on transparency all the time. The shadows casted by those textures dont take into account the trasparency.
Right now I have one solution wich is to convert the mest to a mover.
But what if I have a whole jungle full of transperency? Do you guys/girls have another solution.
Thanks .

http://www.postimage.org/aV1WHSVS.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aV1WHSVS) http://www.postimage.org/Pq8Jro0.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Pq8Jro0)

Neox

09-08-2009, 10:01 AM

so you want to make dense jungle with fully dynamic shadows coming from the leaves? sure you don't want to test that in cryengine? :)

ivan0v

09-08-2009, 10:33 AM

yes I see the results in cryengine but atm I do my work in Unreal so i just keep pushing it :) I will try with decals, but the leaves are moving (panner).

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

09-08-2009, 11:37 AM

Hello, i'am doing some vegetation stuff in Unreal atm (tropical island). So my textures rely on transparency all the time. The that the shadows casted by those textures dont take into account the trasparency.
Right now I have one solution wich is to convert the mest to a mover.
But what if I have a whole jungle full of transparency? Do you guys/girls have another solution.
Thanks .

http://www.postimage.org/aV1WHSVS.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aV1WHSVS) http://www.postimage.org/Pq8Jro0.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Pq8Jro0)

Ahh sorry but currently the retail version of UT3 does not support baked transparency like you are wanting. But the most current dev version of Unreal allows for it.

Ryan Smith

09-08-2009, 11:46 AM

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

09-08-2009, 03:17 PM

Their new engine supports transparency channels. However, we wont get it untill they release GOW2 for PC... (If they plan on doing that in the first place). They will also have the AO feature in their new engine build... i can't WAIT for it.

The new AO is okay not really all that great...It has some issue's being that it's a post process effect but Lightmass is the shiznit!!!

Neox

09-08-2009, 03:48 PM

yay ao as a postprocess sound like it will work really well with softalphas :D
anyways we would love to get out hands on the new lighting system, would make a lot of things waaaay easier

MegaMoogle

09-08-2009, 05:17 PM

Neox

09-10-2009, 01:57 PM

man i have biiiig shadow problem, somehow they are totally fucked up in the editor, not ingame but they are still annoying...

http://nonpublic.airborn-game.com/wip/neox/shadowfuck.jpg

already deleted all inis in the hope its something with shadowsettings in the inis but nope, thats not it... it just appeared and i dunno what it is causing

Jesse Moody

09-10-2009, 02:03 PM

The new AO is okay not really all that great...It has some issue's being that it's a post process effect but Lightmass is the shiznit!!!

Yes lightmass is the hotness and the new content browser rocks

Neox

09-10-2009, 03:09 PM

Yes lightmass is the hotness and the new content browser rocks

gimme!

nrek

09-10-2009, 05:51 PM

man i have biiiig shadow problem, somehow they are totally fucked up in the editor, not ingame but they are still annoying...

already deleted all inis in the hope its something with shadowsettings in the inis but nope, thats not it... it just appeared and i dunno what it is causing

They looked the same way for me when I opened up the Airborn editor you included in the release package.

ImSlightlyBored

09-11-2009, 12:54 AM

Yes lightmass is the hotness and the new content browser rocks
I'm in disagreement.

Lightmass would be great if you could see the results when you are working on lighting, but as it is, it seems as soon as you bake you get a wildly different result as to what you see before baked and computed etc. As opposed to the old system, which was only fairly different. It brings some nice features, but I found some of it not too useful given the time it adds to baking (not taking in to account network rendering, which is one of the aforementioned nice features.)

As for content browser, I just do not like change. I'm just not sold on the presentation of it, I think.

Neox

09-11-2009, 01:19 AM

They looked the same way for me when I opened up the Airborn editor you included in the release package.

O_O the only thing i changed on this version the last days was building the lights, but can that really change the light in all editor windows? o.o
also when i rotate the light it doesn't changea thing, but i get the lighiting needs to be rebuilt stuff, so its definitely not the lightsource, damn what the hell went wrong :/
also its really just in the editor, i tested everything with the light but it doesn't change

nrek

09-12-2009, 10:28 PM

I have been having some troubles with a custom particle system. I created a new emitter, saved my package, saved my level, placed the emitter, then played it and I was able to see the particle just fine. Then I placed a few more (placed, not alt dragged out copies) and saved then tried to play it again. This time either one or none of the particle systems would show up. They all still show up fine in the editor viewport though. Any thoughts?

MegaMoogle

09-14-2009, 07:10 AM

Is there any way to script in kismet one trigger to trigger different events based on how many times you activate it? For example, the first time triggers a certain event, the second time triggers a different event...

arrangemonk

09-14-2009, 01:34 PM

if then else? + counter

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

09-14-2009, 06:04 PM

I'm in disagreement.

Lightmass would be great if you could see the results when you are working on lighting, but as it is, it seems as soon as you bake you get a wildly different result as to what you see before baked and computed etc. As opposed to the old system, which was only fairly different. It brings some nice features, but I found some of it not too useful given the time it adds to baking (not taking in to account network rendering, which is one of the aforementioned nice features.)

As for content browser, I just do not like change. I'm just not sold on the presentation of it, I think.

Ah you just need to get used to using LightMass(LM) as it is far superior to the old system. We had some problems getting the whole thing up and running here but as soon as we started to understand how to actually use LM correctly the results where amazing....

LM will give you results that are far superior to anything the stock unreal light build can provid. It still is using a baked and computed lighting system its just far better. But I will say that I am very suprised that it is CPU bound and not GPU bound as GPU's have way more processing power.

ImSlightlyBored

09-15-2009, 01:08 AM

Oh I've used it
It's superior for some things but not all. The main flaw/offput for me is not being able to see what you are doing, the bounce just kills your authorial control once built.

I think I will give it a go on a personal scene soon though to make sure. I just do not think it is the second coming of jesus for lighting, at all.

JordanW

09-15-2009, 08:34 AM

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

09-15-2009, 08:39 AM

I don't think people are saying it's the second coming of Jesus, it's just a matter of UE3 having lighting features that people are used to having with tools like MentalRay, Vray, Renderman and other indirect lighting solutions.

LOL that just made my day....

JordanW

09-15-2009, 09:18 AM

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

09-15-2009, 10:50 AM

? Do you think that it doesn't? Granted it doesn't utilize photometric lights because everything is currently baked down to LDR but are there features missing that you think an indirect lighting solution should have?

Sorry I should have edited my quote to the only show the second coming of Jesus part...I thought that was really funny...But I love LM, it's the bee's knees man!

ImSlightlyBored

09-15-2009, 12:37 PM

You should really put some time into experimenting with Lightmass, I mean the complaints you giving are pretty much standard for any lighting system that uses indirect lighting...MentalRay, RenderMan, VRay...they all look different when you render because it's not trivial to preview indirect lighting dynamically.

If your studio is set up with Swarm you should be able to do preview builds of small areas in a matter of minutes or less, if not then there's a problem.

I don't think people are saying it's the second coming of Jesus, it's just a matter of UE3 having lighting features that people are used to having with tools like MentalRay, Vray, Renderman and other indirect lighting solutions.
from last paragraph to first
That's just the vibe I've been getting from some people man, both on internet forums and at work, some people are beyond hyped about it is all. I have experimented with lightmass, quite a bit... I dont know. its maybe just me, or the lighting approach. As I say, I'm going to give it a go on a personal project to have a leisurely walk through it.

Good points about the realtime preview but unfortunately for me its a breaker, just because lighting build times can be quite long anyway, and to have to tweak one or two lights and rebuild because somethings bouncing too much, wasn't too appealing to me. Spose thats as much my fault/approach as it is anything else, mind. The ability to bake AO has admittedly got me excited though.

I'm not knocking UE3 though, I love it!

As an aside, I thought Renderman had a pretty close preview of what you were getting?

moose

09-15-2009, 02:44 PM

I'm trying to create a custom UI scene for a team prototype we're doing for class. Although I believe I may have some of the most basic of basics down I still have a few questions. My main question is that if I have several different images to make up an inventory (the inventory holder, and some items to go in it) how do I do the scripting to allow the items to pop up on the holder after picking them up during gameplay? Also, if we create several states for the healthbar to show it decreasing during gameplay how do we go about scripting that?

I cant fully answer this megamoogle, since i do not script the huds/uis, but can try to help

If you are using Canvas to draw elements on the HUD (not using a UI scene), you can do the "UV's" of the texture in script, and reference them that way. Use photoshop's slice tool to find the top, left, width and height (U, V, UL, VL).

You could also create a bunch of individual icons and texture swap in script. You could create your inventory screen with all the image widgets you need, and swap textures/styles into the item widget as needed, and a blank image when it is empty.

IE, if you have 16 inventory slots, you'll need 16 widgets in the UI scene that qualify as those images. Name them uniquely (imgInventory0-15) so you can pick them out in script, and from there you can assign a texture to them as they're aquired. The default imgInventory# widget should be blank, or some sort of default image, and make it blank in script to ensure you have empty slots :)

Lamont

09-17-2009, 03:13 AM

I'm getting ready to dip into PostProcess effects in UED. How in the hell do I change the default one to the one I made so I can see in the editor? I tried changing the line in the *.ini file. No luck.

Kovac

09-17-2009, 10:06 AM

Lamont there's two sections to replace the PPE in the engine.ini file:

[Engine.Engine]
[UnrealEd.UnrealEdEngine]

It could just be the wrong .ini file too. What are you planning on doing withe the PPE? A lot of tweaks can just be altered in the World Settings or creating a PostProcessVolume that encompasses part/all of the level.

Jesse Moody

09-17-2009, 01:09 PM

Lamont. I ended up playing with this for some prototype stuff to create a pretty stylized post process look. Kind of like the red/black Gears 2 trailer had.

It ended up coming down to scripting, watching some of the tutorial that 3d buzz did a while back and just messing with things. So it basically created a whole new post process node to replace the older one.

I'm sure there were other ways but this is just how I ended up doing it.

Then once that was done I created new materials that I used as the post process effect.

Results were pretty cool. Still trying new things and messing with things.

Lamont

09-17-2009, 02:07 PM

@ Kovac - That's the line I was tinkering with. I think I also need to follow the UED naming method for levels like "CTF_Buttwipe".

@J.Moody - Scripting? 3DBuzz? I'll go take a gander. And yeah, I just wanna mess with something and see what happens :D.

Lamont

09-18-2009, 08:10 PM

I figured out why there aren't many people doing this. UED relies on the default PPE for everything in game, and if I do make one, then no one else can see it because I'd have to send the ini file to them. UED doesn't like changing the default PPE it seems. It needs to be there. Also UED bitched at me about it.

Or you set it in Kismet and use it like a Mutator, so I'll go that route.

Jesse Moody

09-18-2009, 09:51 PM

Lamont: Yeah thats why you need to do the scripting stuff but then you will need to do a lot more then just send a map out. I don't know of any way of embedding it into a map or package since the code has to get compiled.

elementrix

09-19-2009, 05:40 AM

Lamont

09-19-2009, 07:08 AM

Yeah, apply an alpha to opacity and a tileable grayscale image in the displacement.

Neox

09-19-2009, 08:00 AM

you mean distortion right?

elementrix

09-19-2009, 08:23 AM

ImSlightlyBored

09-19-2009, 08:31 AM

you might even be able to exploit UE3 here, you know. Shadows tend to cast to infinity and even on backfaces of objects, its a bug I've tried to conquer a few times but you might be able to use it to your advantage. Just give it a go, with a light cast shadows from a character and check out the outer faces, theres a chance it might have received shadows anyway.

Neox

09-19-2009, 10:02 AM

hahahahahaha, awesome imslightlybored, never thought of exploiting that stuff for such effects

i always tend to build stuff to hide that effect or hope that no one will see it :D

i think in the latest build this one is fixed, i read something in udn about clipping distances for shadows or something like this

JordanW

09-19-2009, 10:10 AM

hey guys, I'm kind of new to materials but now I want to try and make a material that has a slight opacity, and then blurs anything that stands behind it, could someone explain me how I would have to do that?

:\ you cant "Blur" anything behind it, I mean you could but you'd have to have access to the source code. The way you would do it is expose the blur kernal (the full screen image that's blurred for bloom and DOF) and lerp that in your material. As it stands right now there's no access to this on the content side of things.

ImSlightlyBored

09-19-2009, 10:15 AM

word
in reality itll probably just look like a bug.
OP what youd want to do is to create an unlit translucency material
set opacity to whatver (constant 1 maybe set at 0.5???)

Then take a scenetexturesample node and use the zbuffer (Alpha channel) as your emissive result, probably clamp out some highs so you only get the dark shadows, then you are going to want to blur that in the same way described earlier in this thread.
Edit: So I don't look like a total cock, to blur things without access to the proper way of blurring, you have to take 4/8 samples, nudge them in every possible direction by a set amount and then combine them all back together. It should look relatively blurred, but the higher your nudging the more obviously unblurred they look.

It's quite a complex effect if you are just starting out with materials though and quite expensive anyway. And i forget if SceneTextureSample has been opened in retail builds (UT3, GOW) in the material editor, I thought it was a relatively new thing but maybe not.

Lamont

09-19-2009, 11:54 AM

you mean distortion right?

Yeah! I knew it started with a D.

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

09-20-2009, 11:01 AM

you mean put the grascale image in the Distortion??, what Im actually trying to achieve is a tent at night effect like this:

http://www.belltent.co.uk/images/gallery_yours/tent_at_night.jpg

would it be possible to make such a tent effect with a light in it, and then when a character walks in the tent you see the shadow on the outside?

I know you cannot have real-time shadows on materials with opacity, but maybe this could be faked somehow without using opacity??

You can have real time shadows on materials with opacity you need to change your light to modulate better so that the shadow will show up*. However with modulate better your shadows are going to cast through everything so you might get shadows on objects that you don't want the shadow to go on.

As for your tent you should use the translucent node in the material editor and then using an gray scale image as a mask to define that amount of light that will be emitted through the material. Black = full light though White = no light coming though.

*I am not sure if UT3 has this option but the version I do at work does and this is how I went about fixing issue like this.

Lamont

09-20-2009, 06:00 PM

From what I remember w/out the editor open the only materials that will accept opacity are the ones set to Mask with modulate. Mask is not a blended alpha and will cast and receive shadows.

metalliandy

09-21-2009, 04:26 PM

Im not sure if this has been covered here already but after much pulling of hair and frustration on my part, the lovely chap Riki from Eat3d suggested a part solution for the texture compression problems within UE.

Change the LODGroup in the texture properties window within the generic browser from World to UI and they appear in all their uncompressed glory.
By part solution i mean that obviously this wouldn't be any good for production but its great for portfolio shots :)

Here is a before and after from within the editor (the quality is slightly reduced due to being a .gif)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/metalliandy/Unreal_World_vs_UI-1.gif
(http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2057427/Unreal_World_vs_UI.swf)

mheyman

09-23-2009, 02:47 PM

If you create a second UV set for the light map of a static mesh what is a good resolution to set for the LightMapResolution in the static mesh editor. I tried 2048 because anything lower than that yielded really blurry results but even at 2048 its still not perfect. I'm afraid of going any higher because my build times are already fairly high.

Everywhere I read it says i should use low numbers like 16, 32 etc... but these leave me with just a very blurry lightmap that doesnt look like anything in the game? Any suggestions?

Ben Apuna

09-23-2009, 05:08 PM

2048 is quite large for a lightmap, and IMHO not very practical for real ingame usage unless your mesh is gigantic and unique. If it's for a portfolio piece or cut scene it may not matter as much.

I can't say for sure but I think a good method is to try and calculate how much texture budget you have for lightmaps in your scene then divide it up according to how many meshes you will have in the level and how much detail you need for each mesh. Large mesh or closer to camera = higher resolution.

Here's a nice light mapping tutorial by Stephen Jameson, it goes into depth about setting up optimal lightmap UVs for low resolution lightmaps.

http://stephenjameson.com/tutorials/...-uvs-tutorial/ (http://stephenjameson.com/tutorials/lightmap-uvs-tutorial/)

mheyman

09-23-2009, 05:24 PM

The scene I'm creating is strictly for my portfolio. The most that will come from it are still images, maybe a video of a walkthrough. It just seems like the the shadows are fairly fuzzy. I didn't mention before, by the UVs I'm using for the lightmap are the same layout I'm using for my diffuse? Is there a better means to arrange the UVs?

Thanks for that link! I believe I've read over it before in the past but I think it'll be more useful to me now that I'm working with this stuff.

Also is there any major difference between modulated and normal shadows when baking lightmaps?

Jesse Moody

09-23-2009, 05:29 PM

Ben thats a pretty good tutorial except in the latest builds of unreal with lightmass and all that you don't need to have the padding on the edges of the maps anymore.

Ben Apuna

09-23-2009, 05:50 PM

@Jesse Moody:

That's awesome, the padding wastes so much space.

@skayne:

Modulated Shadows (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ModulatedShadows.html)

I guess you're still using the retail version Unreal Tournament 3 like me? Then in general I would say using the diffuse UVs for lightmap UVs is a bad idea because of the padding issue with lightmap UVs.

Also if you've got any mirrored UVs that can cause some issues as well (this was discussed a couple of pages back in this thread).

Overlapping UVs will duplicate the lighting on different parts of the mesh which might or might not be correct.

That link I posted gives a few ideas about how to make better UV layouts for lightmap UV sets.

Jesse Moody

09-23-2009, 06:10 PM

you still have to do the padding on the inside though...just not near the edges.

Ben Apuna

09-23-2009, 06:44 PM

Oh... :( It would be great if non-square texture sizes were allowed for lightmaps too. I hope Epic will release a new build of the engine to the public in the future, I'd love to play with lightmass and some of the newer material nodes.

shabba

09-27-2009, 01:21 PM

Hi everyone,
My question regards UnrealScript, and Kismet.

I am wondering if it is possible to emulate Shadow Complex, by this I mean:

- side scrolling camera that follows the player
- limit the players movement to left and right only
- custom script for movement abilities (this is the least important)

I am curious if their are similar tuts around that are capable of this or something like it? Or maybe someone can point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance!

http://bulk.destructoid.com/ul/142136-two-hours-into-shadow-complex-and-i-ve-/ShadowComplex_Screen17-620x.jpg

Hourences

09-27-2009, 01:34 PM

Entirely possible with unrealscript yes. And theres a mod that does just that even. Google for UT3 UT2D.

Afaik there are no tutorials out there that focus on how to set this kind of game up though.

__________________________________________

I am hard at work updating my website. I introduced a snippet system for one, where you can ctrl+c kismet and level bits on the website, and then directly ctrl+v them into the editor.

So for example on my website is an elevator setup. You copy it. You paste it into the editor, and you got a working elevator!

http://www.hourences.com/book/snippetsindex.htm

Basic rooms and terrains. Many gameplay Kismet things. Also orbitting camera setups amd setups that remove the hud and all weapons from the player, probably handy if you want to showcase a model.

Official release and announcement following in a while, together with a slew of other things including new tutorials and a revamped job section focusing entirely on Unreal.

shabba

09-27-2009, 01:53 PM

Great thanks! I'm downloading it right now :) And thank you for the quick reply.

Lamont

09-27-2009, 07:06 PM

There is a tutorial on a top down shooter/maze game on 3DBuzz.com. Just create an account and have at it.

|*BILLY$CLINT*|

09-29-2009, 08:43 AM

Ben thats a pretty good tutorial except in the latest builds of unreal with lightmass and all that you don't need to have the padding on the edges of the maps anymore.

That's not entirely accurate as I have done many test cases using LM(Lightmass) and found that while you don't need aggressive padding on your light map UVW you do still need some or you will get bleeding.

Evolution

10-06-2009, 02:51 AM

Hi all, thought I would post a quick question here that popped up today.

I have started playing around with making vegetation in Unreal 3 and I would like to know if I can make plants reactive to the player....and is it worth it?

I ask because I have large leafed plants I think may be better if they react to players and other things maybe?

anyway, thank you :)

Neox

10-07-2009, 03:15 AM

i don't know if this is possible but we made a mistake with one of our packages, the name string is just too long, no problem on the pc but if we want to cook for ps3 it would be great to be able to change the name of the package and all references with it together, because if i just change it windows, unreal of course can't find the new package, so is there a way to do this, maybe via console or whatever?

@evolution: maybe create the plant as a skeletal mesh with a Physicsobject bound to it that reacts/collides with the player?

Lamont

10-07-2009, 03:30 AM

Oh man, sorry to hear that Neox, I know that's a PITA. Even if you rename assets and place into another package UED keeps references and pointers in the old package. Back at Midway we had a tool that renamed packages and killed all references/pointers. I don't know of any consumer tools that can do that.

wisebrownmonkey

10-07-2009, 07:53 PM

I was wondering in unreal 3 editor can you, in the material editor , do something like combining two textures. May not be exactly like this but something similar. Thanks guys

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u51/wisebrownmonkey/Untitled-3-10.jpg

Lamont

10-07-2009, 08:03 PM

Here you go WiseBrownMonkey, taken from my GameArtisans post:

Here you go:

The files are done. I will upload a link for you to DL all the source for this. I'll edit this post with info in a few moments.

----------------------------------

Ok, so I did something called a "grey pack". Each channel in a certain image controls where something will show up. I've never been able to get all 3 working in Maya, I test the tiling as I work on a section.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/TiledTshots_03.jpg

In UED, I set up my material as follows. You can set up a master material and use it for all your terrain bits by exposing certain params (tiling factor and images used).

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/TiledTshots_02.jpg

The result is something like this. I pray you spend more time on it than I did.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/TiledTshots_01.jpg

-----------------------------

As for the terrain editor in UED. That's a whole 'nother ball game. It does all this pretty much the same (only better). But editing can be a PITA. I prefer bringing in chunks of meshes and creating collision for them.

You can download the source files here: ::LINK:: (http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/TiledTutorial.rar)

I use vertex colors every now and then, like if you can't tell, then I'd use it. Sometimes you can see that obvious vertex color blending between texture transitions.

In Maya, just paint with red, green or blue. Have some good blending.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/TiledTshots_04.jpg

Ignore UED not showing the node previews correctly.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/TiledTshots_05.jpg

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/TiledTshots_06.jpg

Here are the files. What you want to look at is how I used the texture for the single and double. I can put like 3 road variations on the single road UV sheet.

As for the double, it's just easier to work with. Take a look at the UV relationship editor and the road material on that one.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/RoadTshots_01.jpg

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/RoadTshots_02.jpg

Download the source files here (MAYA 2009): ::LINKY:: (http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/RoadTutorial.rar).

If you want to see how this is set up in UED, let me know.

Here is how I do decals, colored grunge and debris.. err whatever you want to stick on a building. My whole take on material creation is to examine the scene and come up with a list of materials I'd need. From there I see what materials I can consolidate. And from there I make Master Materials, and anything that needs that material I make an instance and change only a few parameters instead of making whole new nodes.

So here is the wall in Maya, I have two UV sets: One for decals, one for the brick. And I liked the UV sets where map2 is linked to the decal, and map1 is for the diffuse. Don't worry about the alpha.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/BrickWallTut_00.jpg

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/BrickWallTut_01.jpg

So in UED after I import all the assets, here is how I set up the node. Notice the "TilingFactor" labeled node. That dictates the amount of tiling.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/BrickWallTut_02.jpg

I changed the "TilingFactor" node to 5, notice things still sync up. I didn't have to paint a new decal to match up with it.

The benefit of this is that I can pop in any decal image, any brick image and it will tile correctly and retail the nice brick/painted on look. And this can be used for the majority of my buildings. Add in an AO map and custom lighting if you need. Take this one more step further with a good parallax map network and tie in the second mask for the decal with the grout of the brick, where the edges around each brick shows more wear and tear on the decal.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/BrickWallTut_03.jpg

Questions that may come up:

Q - So why don't you just have an alpha plane over it?
A - It doesn't really look like it's tied into the wall, like it's a part of it. I'd use alpha planes for things like posters and dynamic things. Or if the engine dictated that I needed to for things like this. Also, lighting, as objects in UED that are alpha'd don't get the nice lighting as the other objects. The only way is to have a 1bit alpha (either white or black, no grey) and you'd loose all the nice blended edges.

You can get crazy with this and have a spec value for the painted images in the alpha channel used by a second UV set. Take this value and add it to the spec of the brick. Also you can combine normal maps in UED, by pulling all the channels apart, then putting them back together. This may be overkill, but the surface variations you can get will look badass.

Download source files (Maya 2009/UED) here: ::LINKY:: (http://digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/DecalTut.rar)

wisebrownmonkey

10-07-2009, 08:23 PM

Lamont (http://boards.polycount.net/member.php?u=25636) thanks x1,000,000 for the quick reply and the answer

moose

10-07-2009, 09:37 PM

wisebrownmonkey: you can also blend between two textures by using a linear interpolate, or Lerp node.

http://bb.mooseskins.com/lerp.jpg

Jesse Moody

10-07-2009, 09:47 PM

what moose said.... an easy thing to do. LERP can be quite handy for stuff like this and say stuff like damaged or breakables. :)

Lamont

10-07-2009, 10:07 PM

what moose said.... an easy thing to do. LERP can be quite handy for stuff like this and say stuff like damaged or breakables. :)Breakables are in consumer UED?

Jesse Moody

10-07-2009, 10:09 PM

Breakables are in consumer UED?

Oh not sure to be honest. I'm sure you could do them. I did a lot of breakables and multiple objects on Singularity.

Lamont

10-07-2009, 10:17 PM

I dunno man, I've been looking. If it's in there, then it must be a PITA to get going and not all spiffy like I had at work. I loved making things break :( ::sniff::

Dr Stench

10-08-2009, 01:52 AM

Holy crap, this is quite the MASTER thread!

OBlastradiusO

10-09-2009, 07:48 PM

Is it cool to overlap uv's when doing architecture?

OBlastradiusO

10-11-2009, 06:38 AM

Anyone?

Neox

10-11-2009, 06:40 AM

well how should someone answer? depends... what do you want to do? its ok to overlap when you have similar things its ok to share uvs, but if you want to bake lights your then better have either unique uvs or a second uv set with unique uvs

OBlastradiusO

10-11-2009, 06:46 AM

I have a empty room that shares one texture. The uv's are scattered and overlapped all over the place to cover this one texture. If I did bake lights for this room the bake wouldn't come out right?

Lamont

10-11-2009, 06:49 AM

Then you need to either have the object set to be vertex lit, or a second UV set for baked lighting.

OBlastradiusO

10-11-2009, 06:53 AM

Then you need to either have the object set to be vertex lit, or a second UV set for baked lighting.

Thanks. I'll probably go with the 2nd uv set to bake the lighting then.

Lamont

10-11-2009, 06:56 AM

Thanks. I'll probably go with the 2nd uv set to bake the lighting then.Then remember to tell UED what UV channel the lightmaps will bake to. Default is UV0. I am assuming you are gonna add a second UV channel and leave the original in the slot it's in.

OBlastradiusO

10-11-2009, 07:07 AM

Then remember to tell UED what UV channel the lightmaps will bake to. Default is UV0. I am assuming you are gonna add a second UV channel and leave the original in the slot it's in.

Yes. That's what I'm gonna do. Also will the overlapping in the uv0 channel affect my normals? Or do I also have to make another channel for that as well?

maestro

10-11-2009, 10:46 AM

Hi, thanks in advance for your help.

I have a wall that gets blown out by an explosion, but just one panel of the wall. This panel is a skeletal mesh. Right next to this panel are many static meshes that look identical to the skel mesh wall panel. If I enable the BSP or Static lighting chanel for the skeletal mesh, it seems to work but then when i dump frames it just turns black again. Can anyone suggest how I might match the lighting on the two?

Lee3dee

10-12-2009, 11:04 AM

http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/career-getting-a-job/how-to-get-a-job-with-epic-games.php

interesting article on Epic Games hiring process. Thought it would be good to post in the UE3 section :)

Mistry10

10-12-2009, 03:01 PM

shape

10-15-2009, 05:25 AM

So I've made a material that uses lerps for an rgb blendmap. This works fine for my terrain as I can just paint a specific blendmap across the whole surface in my 3d app.

I'm trying to blend across multiple static mesh instances for smaller architectural modules though- is there any nice way of doing this is UE3 and maya/max?

The last engine I worked with didn't use instancing (for the most part) - so we could just paint blendmaps across multiple objects in maya which shared a common uv set 2 (or each piece had a unique space on a uv layout shared by many pieces for one blendmap) This allows different blending across essentially the "same" mesh. Scenes were constructed in maya and exported straight to the game.

Is there a way to have unique uv sets per instance for static meshes? Not sure if I'm on the right track here... or if this is just gonna be a huge pita and I should come up with other ways of adding variation to my scene.. or screw instancing for UC2009 and just export static meshes per building after constructing them from modules in maya/max.

edit: or - and I hope this wouldn't be the only way - I could paint a tonne of different blendmaps for each module and apply different materials depending on the instance in UE3.. ouch

Neox

10-15-2009, 06:36 AM

well instances can load a lightmap on them? maybe you can use the uvsets thats been used for the lightmap?

shape

10-15-2009, 06:49 AM

Hey Neox yeah I was definitely thinking along those lines - what I am after is a way of painting across multiple instances, which would need to be done in UE3 after constructing the scene I think. And I don't think there isn't any mesh paint tools in UE3? :) I'm quite the noob in UE3.

edit, again: I guess the difference is:

My ye olde way of working - single blendmap over many non-instanced objects using uvset 2 where many object's uv coords are compiled into a single 0-1 for lightmaps, Ao etc

And to achieve the same effect in UE3 - unique blendmaps for many instanced meshes using uvset 2, where uvset 2 coords probably occupy 0-1 per mesh as per lightmap setup

Neox

10-15-2009, 06:57 AM

never heard of such a thing i don't think the terrainpainting will work, did you try exporting meshes from unreal to obj and look into the uvs? maybe you have both sets

shape

10-15-2009, 07:05 AM

Hey yeah I definitely have both sets, my blendmap and lightmap are fine on the terrain I'm working on.

I'll adjust :)

moose

10-15-2009, 10:26 PM

Shape: you can use decals instead? Decals can project information onto multiple objects, and you don't need to do multiple UV sets.

You can set your decal up to be modular, addative, masked, opacity blend, etc in your material, then put it on a decal actor, and point it at your scene. This is a great way to add drips, stains, posters, sometimes paint stripes & stuff.

That way, you can paint what you need to paint in 2d in photoshop (over a screenshot) then have it as its own material in the engine

shape

10-15-2009, 11:13 PM

Yes! That's what I'm looking for. Will check out the specifics.

nrek

10-16-2009, 07:51 PM

Hey guys is there a special command to get a wireframe/shaded or wireframe/lightingonly view rather than the standard "viewmode wireframe" which gives you the wireframe with a black background. I noticed Peris shows one in his UC entry from last year.

http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=843936&postcount=1

Jesse Moody

10-16-2009, 08:21 PM

nrek. should be show mesh edges i believe without opening up unreal.

nrek

10-16-2009, 08:50 PM

Great, thanks Jesse.

sampson

10-18-2009, 03:41 AM

Question: i'm following hourences guide on terrain, but when its supposed to paint texture, it keeps just painting the terrain up.... any ideas? -i've definately got standard paint tool selected - i think i'm missing something

ImSlightlyBored

10-18-2009, 04:17 AM

You are on the height brush/layer
try changing the brushes, theres little icons somewhere. I think you need to set up texture layers too and make sure you have them selected. its been ages since i used it though

Xoliul

10-18-2009, 04:26 AM

Sometimes it still paints height when you're not on the terrain height layer. Just go to the second material layer and paint with Ctrl - right mouse button; that way you'll erase that layer and paint back the first one. I think it's a bit of a bug.

Joshua Stubbles

10-18-2009, 08:33 AM

I've been reading quite a few ways (some rather funky) of creating decals in Unreal Ed. Anyone with a lot of experience with it care to chime in with a good way of doing so? Thanks :D

Orb

10-18-2009, 09:32 AM

yo, i'm learning the unreal editor for the unearthly challenge, and i have a big novice problem, i can't move anything in my viewport. I have a red cross instead of my move gizmo, its the same cross you get when you press G to unhide the icones. Does anyone know where that lock could come from?

ok that was just the icone near the move icone x) (thx for the pm ^^)

ImSlightlyBored

10-18-2009, 10:05 AM

I've been reading quite a few ways (some rather funky) of creating decals in Unreal Ed. Anyone with a lot of experience with it care to chime in with a good way of doing so? Thanks :D
many different ways
majority come down to how you set up your material, blending modes like additive or modulate or even translucent.

then just assign it as a decal material.

you could also embed decals within your objects material and parametize (made up word) the variables so its flexible for material instances, but with that comes an increase in textures aapplied at once to the same surface, but the benefits are easier to manage, and more control and the ability to manipulate an objects spec with your decals too.

The latter technique is something I favour but isn;t actually decals I suppose. Hourences site has a write up on normal decals-
http://hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3decals.htm

linkov

10-18-2009, 10:59 AM

sorry if this was asked before.

I see quite often so called blockouts made in UnrealEd. Their purpose is understandable, however I can't really figure out what to do next? Is there some way to export these blockouts to 3d modeling program or what?

Neox

10-18-2009, 12:37 PM

you can export your scene as obj or stl, but i don't know if this works with the unreal internal bsp blockouts too, but i guess so

Ben Apuna

10-18-2009, 07:57 PM

@linkov:

The blockout meshes should be built in your 3d app first then imported into Unreal, they are really just there as placeholders. If you keep the pivots in the same places all you need to do is re-import final meshes and textures into your package from your 3d app and everything will be updated.

That way there is no need to rebuild the scene in Unreal and you can also see if there will be any scale, tiling, or grid issues before you start building any final artwork and take care of them in the early stages.

linkov

10-19-2009, 09:28 PM

Neox, Ben Apuna, thanks

carlo_c

10-23-2009, 11:33 AM

Would anyone know how to create a switch that when triggered switches the view to a camera?

I usually set a camera to trigger as soon as the level loads but the switch way would be more helpful I think but not sure how to go about it.

nrek

10-23-2009, 12:33 PM

It should be pretty much just like having it start on level start, you just switch out the "level startup" node with a "trigger touch status" node or something. I used a trigger volume rather than a trigger but it works the same way. This will activate the camera and it will stay in that view until the end of the matinee sequence.

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/2150/triggercam.jpg

carlo_c

10-23-2009, 01:20 PM

Awesome, thanks nrek I didn't realise it was that simple!

crazyfingers

10-26-2009, 06:36 PM

Soft edges from smoothing groups are disappearing in UT3 after baking light maps. Is there any way to keep the soft lighting from smoothing groups during a light bake in UT3?

Here's a shot showing the issue, the hay on the right is using dynamic lighting, the one on the left has a light bake, identical otherwise:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2601/4048740212_77e8158b75_o.jpg

gamedev

10-26-2009, 06:41 PM

Soft edges from smoothing groups are disappearing in UT3 after baking light maps. Is there any way to keep the soft lighting from smoothing groups during a light bake in UT3? Are you sure thats whats happening? Is there a UV seam there on your lightmap? Looks like a lightmap res issue to me. What does it look like in lighting only mode? What about baking vertex lit or increasing the lightmap res?

-Tyler

DEElekgolo

10-26-2009, 06:43 PM

How would I get iridescence in unreal with a custom color gradient?

crazyfingers

10-26-2009, 07:43 PM

Gamedev: Don't believe it's a seam issue. Here's 3 of them side by side, the one on the left is vertex baked, the 2 on the right are both 512 light bakes, one rotated 180 degrees. There's certianly a seam issue on the top, but more importantly the light bake simply makes the objects too geometric. I suppose i could bump up the geo, but I'm trying to save tris for future assets. Thanks for your time!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2675/4048912674_926e96f670_o.jpg

Adam L. Gray

10-27-2009, 07:46 AM

Do you have a normalsmap applied?

In that case, try to unlink it from your material, save the material, then plug it in and save the material again. Dunno why but this seems to solve a similar issue I had recently.
----------------------------

On another note, I'm in need of some help myself.

There seems to have been some rather awkward bugs lately in Ut3, at least so I believe.

Whenever I bake light maps on a model that doesn't have a second uv-channel and overlapping uv's it obviously comes out horrible.

So, I go back into max, fix a second uv-channel and apply a flatten mapping to it with no overlapping faces. Re-export the mesh and import it into ut3. Re-bake, and it looks like this:

http://i33.tinypic.com/x3tq2t.jpg

I did change the settings for which channel the light maps should be baked to, channel #1 as in the second uv-channel in max (and switched between the numbers without it solving the issue)

So, it seems to me that it bakes the light map in the correct uv-channel then applies it using the first? Which kinda pisses me off as I never had this issue before, except from this and the previous week :(

As mentioned, I did try changing the settings for which channel it should bake the lightmaps for. And I also tried re-starting the program, then rebaking, and it remains the same.

Ben Apuna

10-27-2009, 07:58 AM

I think crazyfingers was having a similar problem just the other day, this thread (http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=66923) might help.

crazyfingers

10-27-2009, 04:01 PM

Yep, lemme post a very simple write up of how to fix it so you don't have to search through the thread too much:

1. Export your object as an *.ase BUT CHANGE THE NAME to be a unique new *.ase file, DO NOT save over your old one.
2. Import the new file that UT3 has not seen before (you can change it's name now to match the old mesh name so it replaces it)

Presto! It's really that easy. Oh and then flip the light map channel in and out per usual.

jett12

10-28-2009, 02:27 AM

So I'm setting up my scene in Unreal, and I having some strange issues.

I am getting seams, which are not present in Maya, or Marmoset... I assume its from shadows for some reason, but I cant figure out how to fix them.

Has anyone seen this issue before, or know how to fix it?

http://www.jettfolio.com/images/Junkton/seam.jpg

Neox

10-28-2009, 02:50 AM

invert the green channel of your normalmaps

Adam L. Gray

10-28-2009, 03:12 AM

Thanks guys, appreciate it. Should've used the search function, a bit lazy, I know. But were so tired and slightly pissed atm that I couldn't bother :)

/edit: seems that didn't fix the issue either. I have had the explained issue before, so I'm grateful for the solution to that.

However, whenever you tile your material in max using the material settings it'll automatically re-size your uv's. So turns out I used up 200% of the 0-1 area for my lightmap, thus causing the error. Just thought I'd mention =)

jett12

10-28-2009, 01:52 PM

Flipping green worked for all my objects EXCEPT the red tank... actually i just applied a base normal map, of the flat default normal blue, and it still does the exact same thing, when it is not applied, there is no seam, what could be the cause of this? The smoothing groups are correct, and UV's are not overlapping...

crazyfingers

10-28-2009, 02:19 PM

I actually was having the same issue just the other day. Not sure this will work for you but you can try it. If your object has a UV seam across the middle on channel 1 it's a good bet that this will work.

1. Move all your existing UV's up 1 channel
2. Create a new UV channel 1 and do a quick planar map or sphere map that gives you the least seams in the best possible places.
3. Reimport your asset and adjust your mats and light channel accordingly.

d1ver

10-29-2009, 09:54 AM

Whats up, guys! I'm in a bit of trouble here and I really could use some help.
I'm simply trying to make a vehicle with trasnparent windows. I was shure that this just couldn't cause any problems, but unfortunately it did, and having browsed some internet I haven't found an answer. I really feel like I could've missed something obvious, but anyway, herer goes:

When I look at the material preview on a box or a cylinder or whatever it looks fine, as shown on the picture. But once I apply it on the model it turns into a mess. The model seems fine. I tried applying it on the other model and the result is the same so it must be the material.

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/5995/helpg.jpg

Any help would be much appreciated. And thanks in advance.

Wahlgren

10-29-2009, 10:02 AM

Mark.N

10-29-2009, 10:46 AM

Hey guys. Anyone have a clue on how to set up a custom cam in unreal and bind one of the viewports to it?

I would like to try and set up the same view and angle i have in the max-scene and change fov and things like this. Also. If you can freeze movement that would be awesome.

Is this possible? I'd prefer not to use my perspective camera all the time ;)

EDIT: Ok i found out how to create a camera and customize it but not how to lock the viewport and see from the camera. Hmm. :/

http://markin3d.com/imagedump/lockActor.jpg

Here's the button you're looking for. It's the small eye next to the maximize viewport button. Just click it and then click on an actor. Any actor that 'points' out in some direction, like a camera, will have that view locked to what the actor sees. If you use your mouse look/move you can also move the actor around in a first person sort of way; just be careful as I've found the button to be a bit finicky and it's rather easy to accidentally zoom an actor across the map. You can lock the movement of the camera from within the actor properties so that you don't accidentally move your camera.

Hope that helps.

Wahlgren

10-29-2009, 11:07 AM

Well. Is it truly seeing from the camera though? Because changing fov and aspect doesn´t do anything at all to the viewport. Help appreciated anyway :)

Lamont

10-29-2009, 02:25 PM

D1ver. Seperate the glass from the main body of the mesh. The car body shader will have no alpha in the material.

Jesse Moody

10-29-2009, 05:02 PM

D1ver. Seperate the glass from the main body of the mesh. The car body shader will have no alpha in the material.

Yeah pretty much just put the glass on a second material id for best results. That's what I have always done.

You can put it on the first one but well I just wouldn't.

d1ver

10-30-2009, 06:43 AM

Lamont, Jesse Moody, thanks so much for your reply guys.
If I got you right, you're saying that I should just have two meshes with two materials. I've thought of it and even almost did it, but stopped myself to aks you guys, 'cause I really don't believe that this could be a rational solution in a tool of such a level.
Imagine me doing a racing game with 60 cars simultaniously on the screen. To have transparent windows I'll have to double(!) the amount of drawcalls for cars per frame and that really sounds to irrational to be true. Or doesn't it?
I'm really kinda confued wright now, and I'll probably will do as you guys said, for I just need to get a picture. But I'm very curious about how this thing actually works.

Thanks again.

Adam L. Gray

10-30-2009, 07:07 AM

I think what he means is using 1 mesh, with 2 materials.

If you're using 3ds max, then it's a simple matter of creating a multi/sub material, and use material id's to control which part of your model should use which material.

Then while your mesh is imported into ut3, there should be 2 material slots instead of one for the object.

Googling it should be able to find you a more elaborate explanation. I'm kind of short on time right now :)

d1ver

10-30-2009, 08:31 AM

Hey,Tiros, thanks!
Yeah, thats an option too. And a better one i suppose.
But as far as I know enginewise different materials means different drawcalls anyway. So My main question is still up.

Lamont

10-30-2009, 10:27 AM

Hey,Tiros, thanks!
Yeah, thats an option too. And a better one i suppose.
But as far as I know enginewise different materials means different drawcalls anyway. So My main question is still up.It has to be done, some games do them as completely separate meshes since the cars break and stuff. You're tagging the whole car as an alpha blended material/object. Do this for cars that are in the 15~20k poly range and you can see why a different material/mesh is needed.

d1ver

10-30-2009, 05:24 PM

It has to be done, some games do them as completely separate meshes since the cars break and stuff. You're tagging the whole car as an alpha blended material/object. Do this for cars that are in the 15~20k poly range and you can see why a different material/mesh is needed.

unfortnately I can't do it, so I'm just trying to figure it all out in my head.

As far as I can see aplha blending isn't that much of a complicated operation(if you don't render double sided polys at least). You just render you polys according to z-buffer and in the places where you have opacity you don't just replace the underlying pixel, but mix the two by the straight forward signle variable that is in your opacity mask. And I'm not really shure if it has something to do with polycount rather then texel count.
Does this one additional operation cost so much, that it's cheaper to request another drawcall?
Well it's obvious that opacity blending is additional stress to your engine, and I know that it ain't widely used. We use it only in case of extreme nescessity, but i just though that our inhouse engine wasn't cut out to work too well with this stuff. Is it really so bad, that you've gotta call for another drawcall, and most importantly "why". I'm sorry I'm just feeling extremly curious about it.

And I've tryed loading a mesh with multiple material ID's into UE but somehow it didn't workout for me.=(
I made a multisub object and assgined all the material id's. Then exported to .ase . After import when I look at my lod info in my static mesh editor theres only one material slot. I tryed googling, but haven't found anything that helped. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Good day verybody.=)

Lamont

10-30-2009, 05:48 PM

Are you using the UED exporter or a generic *.ase exporter? You said Multi-Sub, which means 3DS Max. No clue how 3DS Max does the export for UED and what it requires. But get multiple materials on the mesh, or just separate the glass from the body in 3DS Max, then join them at export.

Have not used 3DS Max since v6.

Ben Apuna

10-30-2009, 06:02 PM

d1ver to get the multisub material to work make sure you apply at least one texture to each sub material for each material ID within Max, otherwise the different material IDs won't get transferred to Unreal through ASE export.

d1ver

10-30-2009, 06:59 PM

Lamont and Ben, thank you guys. It's finally fine. I tried to export t with two identical DirectX shaders as multisub materials.)now i know I shouldn't.

thanks a ton!you guys've been a lot of help.

crazyfingers

10-30-2009, 08:36 PM

Anyone know of any cool advanced lighting tutorials for UT3? About to start tackeling more lighting for the unearhtly challenge and want the lighting to look nice.

I've been toying with small negative values on lights, getting some pretty cool results, nice for accenting areas of the scene. But i'd rather the light behave more like a fog and not affect surcfaces base on their facing, simply their proximity, any way of achieving this?

Actually any kind of high end trickery tutorials for making a unreal level look snazzy would be cool!

Neox

10-31-2009, 11:11 AM

hm try fog volumes? or some shaders on planes that behave like fog, hourences has a tutorial on that

Wahlgren

11-01-2009, 06:57 AM

Anyone know if there's statistics inside the editor?
Would like to see triangle counts and such. Having no luck with searches. Still no clue about the camera but I can at least change ingame FOV.

Lamont

11-01-2009, 07:02 AM

I don't have it open, but I think "stat engine" is the one you want. Also if you look in the generic browser there's the world info tab. Double click that.

Wahlgren

11-01-2009, 07:11 AM

Ah. I was looking around for what you said but couldn't find any of them. No world info tab either. After awhile I found the tri-count under "primitive stats".

Thanks Lamont. I wonder if i should pay attention to instanced or just regular triangles.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/469564/scenemanager.jpg

danshewan

11-01-2009, 07:31 AM

I wonder if i should pay attention to instanced or just regular triangles.

Depending on the size and complexity of the scene, I'd be more interested in regular triangles. Worth keeping an eye on instanced figures, too, though.

crazyfingers

11-01-2009, 07:44 PM

For the Unearthly challenge the entire scene can be no more than 250k triangles, so you'll want to focus on instanced.

Neox: gonna give the fog volume deal a go, thanks for the heads up.

DEElekgolo

11-01-2009, 10:40 PM

How do I get proper vertice blending setup in 3ds max?

elementrix

11-02-2009, 04:54 PM

Lee3dee

11-02-2009, 05:41 PM

hey guys I made this platform in unreal that moves up quickly when you stand on it, so like an elevator, it used to work ok but now when you step on it the character is jumping all the time making it impossible to keep yourself still on the platform. Does someone know what causes this?

sounds like the collision is interfering with the the character. You could try and hard attach a blocking volume around in the floor of the elevator, so that the surface is straight, if the mesh you are using for the elevator isn't. a screen shot would be easier to see the problem :)

gamedev

11-02-2009, 05:51 PM

Hey elementrix (http://boards.polycount.net/member.php?u=19480) - I think there is a flag for whether or not a pawn can base on an object. If this is set to false or off, the player and other physics objects will act as jumping beans when on moving interp actors. Worth a try!

gamedev

11-02-2009, 05:54 PM

How do I get proper vertice blending setup in 3ds max?

Are you attempting vertex paint in max for using w/ blending in the engine? In edit poly, in vertex mode, you can select verts and then under 'Vertex Properties' you can set color information. You can also use the Vertex Paint modifier.

To view your vertex color inside of max, go to the meshes properties (right click, 'Object Properties') and under 'Dispaly Properties' check on 'Vertex Channel Display'.

When exporting to the engine, ensure you export vertex colors.

-Tyler

crazyfingers

11-02-2009, 09:26 PM

Found some cool UT3 adjustments that I thought i'd share, figure someone might want it with the end of the UC coming up:

View> World Properties> World Info> Scene Midtones

Tweak these to have slightly higher values and a washed out scene will quickly start looking cool again. You can play with highlights and shadows if you want, but the real powers in the midtones.

My scene went from:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3485/4071144676_450c4d0eda_b.jpg
To:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2454/4068552463_8e34a6ef03_b.jpg
I was pretty stoked.

Neox

11-03-2009, 03:09 AM

i think the first version was better readable, if you wanna stick with the second, i'd say add a bit of fog, as its really hard to make out whats going on there

Wahlgren

11-04-2009, 05:49 AM

Anyone know why Ii get so dimmed lights in the scene? Is it just a case of uping the brightness on the lights or am I missing some kind of fancy function/button anywhere?

And is there a way to change the gizmo? If i rotate a mesh upside down I'd prefer it not to be local, World orientation possible?

Adam L. Gray

11-04-2009, 06:46 AM

crazyfingers: Those are actually standard post-processing adjustments. So you don't have to go into the world settings, you could just create and change this directly in your post processing volume. Not saying it's a bad thing doing it in the worl settings, just thought I'd enlighten you, though :p

Notorious: For the lights, it could be the post-processing that needs to be tweaked a bit :)

As for the gizmo, up by the Translate / Rotate / Scale buttons there's also a dropdown menu where you can choose between Local and World.

Wahlgren

11-04-2009, 07:54 AM

Cheers! Playing around with postprocessing now (Aswell as bumping lights). Seems to be the way to go.

Doh. About the gizmo thing. I never looked up there due to shortcuts for the gizmo. hehe. :)

danshewan

11-05-2009, 09:26 AM

Hey guys,

Until this afternoon, I was using the UE3 editor that shipped with UT3. Of course, now I've downloaded and installed the UDK, but I'm still encountering an issue with crashes.

I'm trying to import a small (10k poly) .ase file into UDK, exported from Max 2009. I've checked that there are no rogue splines left in the scene, and everything seems fine in Max. I attempt an import into UDK, and it crashes - every single time. Obviously this is a gigantic pain in the ass, as it's making it supremely difficult to check how my textures look in-game.

Can anyone think of any other factors that would cause a consistent crashing error?

Adam L. Gray

11-05-2009, 09:30 AM

Not sure, as I never imported such hi-res meshes before myself, but could it be the polycount?

I did import a character once, but he was after all split up into multiple meshes. So, did you try splitting the mesh up into smaller parts?

Neox

11-05-2009, 09:40 AM

we imported way larger meshes then 10k into unreal, its definitely not the polycount

danshewan

11-05-2009, 12:55 PM

Yeah, I was pretty confident that it wasn't the poly count.

Any other ideas?

TychoVII

11-05-2009, 03:09 PM

The only trial and error method I can think of would be to delete a large portion of your mesh and try to reimport the small chunk. If the small chunk imports correctly then there is a problem with the other chunk in your mesh. If it still crashes, then maybe there is an inherent problem with the entire mesh file.

You might also try exporting the entire thing as an OBJ, then reimporting it back into Max before sending out your ASE. Sometimes that'll clear up weird anomalies.

Vrav

11-05-2009, 03:17 PM

This is probably irrelevant for UE3, but I always forget to triangulate my mesh and have to go back and do that when importing something into a game engine... possible, just an idea. Usually something stupid like that with me.

ALSO, if anyone reads this I am having an issue with UDK and am posting my question here because I already had this pointless post to edit. Sorry about that. Ahh, so, I use dvorak. I can switch the key input for active programs back to qwerty, which lets me use the wasd controls for camera movement in the viewport. However, this is inconvenient and the editor is constantly refreshing, switching back to dvorak. I can live without wasd camera controls, but was curious to know if there is any config file I can change this sort of setting in. I found some keybinding config files, nothing about wasd, except being able to disable it.

Anyway, feel free not to respond because it's not necessary that I configure this at all. I do not know why I am even posting it, but I was stuck with this post here so I figured I'd add something.

nxh

11-07-2009, 01:17 AM

Sorry if this isn't quite the right place to post, but the info in this thread has been really good and I've had issues finding this information elsewhere, so here goes:

I have a light in my level set to cast shadows. I have a table mesh sitting on a rug mesh, which sits on a BSP surface. The light casts shadow on the BSP just fine, but the table doesn't cast a shadow on the rug.

I've gone mad trying different combinations of lighting channels and settings to try and make one static mesh shadow another static mesh. Does anyone know what combination of settings I need to get this working? Thanks in advance.

Ben Apuna

11-07-2009, 04:56 AM

There really aren't any special settings for getting one static mesh to cast shadows on another, it should work "right out of the box" with any light other than a skylight.

It sounds as though you've got your rug static mesh to bake it's lighting info using vertex lighting. It's one of the things that can throw off not getting good shadows on a static mesh. Another problem could be if it doesn't have a proper UV set for a real pixel based light map bake.

Once placed in a level static meshes by default are set to use vertex lighting to bake shadows so unless you build your mesh with a lot of evenly spaced verts you won't get detailed shadows right away. You need to change one or two settings to get it to work right.

First open up the Generic Browser then open up the Static Mesh Editor window.

Set the LightMapCoordinateIndex to whatever UV channel you've set up for your lightmap bake.

Then either set the LightMapResolution here to a power of 2, something like 64 should work good for small objects.

Next open up the properties window for the static mesh placed in the level and scroll down to bOverrideLightMapResolution and uncheck it.

or

If you've left the LightMapResolution of your static mesh as 0 in the Generic Browser -> Static Mesh Editor window then leave bOverrideLightMapResolution checked and scroll down to OverriddenLightMapResolution and set it to some power of 2 number.

Finally rebuild the lighting

By leaving the LightMapResolution at 0 you are telling Unreal to bake that object's lighting using vertex lighting.

Here's a couple of lightmap UV tutorials for Unreal if you need help with that as well.

http://stephenjameson.com/tutorials/lightmap-uvs-tutorial/

UDN - Unwrapping meshes for light-maps (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/LightMapUnwrapping.html)

GoSsS

11-07-2009, 11:45 AM

Hey guys I just have a question about vertex painting in Unreal editor.
I saw that it's possible to vertex paint a mesh in the udk : http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MeshPaintReference.html but i can't find the mesh paint mode button they're talking about in the editor of the game (the one without lightmass etc)

JordanW

11-07-2009, 12:21 PM

Mesh paint mode is only in latest engine that came with UDK.

GoSsS

11-07-2009, 12:28 PM

:( so there is no way to paint vertex color within UT ?
I'll try to do that in 3ds max and export it but it'll be really tedious :( (hum in fact I think I'm gonna try the udk :D)
Thanks for the answer.

TychoVII

11-07-2009, 04:37 PM

GoSsS, just get the UDK. Might as well throw out UT3 unless you actually play it :P

Oniram

11-08-2009, 06:47 PM

Slainean

11-08-2009, 07:05 PM

ok here is my dilema. i have a room that ive set up all with static meshes and its time to do some lighting. ive posted up some screens of this scene and i got a few comments saying shadows are too soft. so i did some research and was trying to experiment with dynamic lighting.

my question: is it possible (and if so how) to get dynamic shadows on static mesh.
i am looking for crisp shadows in this scene and i am completely stumped.

I'm going to quote EricV from an old thread, who also had questions about getting dynamic lighting. I haven't messed with dynamic lights recently but I think this should cover it.

For whatever reason the static meshes themselves must have bForceDirectLightMap and bUsePreComputedShadows turned off and bCastDynamicShadow turned on, while in the Lighting Channels having Dyanmic checked as well.

As for the light you have to use a point light toggleable (havent tried with all the other lights aside from normal point lights, and spotlights) and under light component have CastDynamicShadows, CastShadows and CastStaticShadows all enabled. Very tricky but SOLVED at last.

nxh

11-08-2009, 07:08 PM

Thank you, Ben! For reasons that I will never fathom, I unchecked "bOverrideLightmapResolution," which quite naturally prevented that actor from receiving proper shadows because, as you indicated, the vertices in the object are not evenly spaced at all (it's a large plane with beveling around the edges.)

Anyway, worked like a charm. Thank you!

Oniram

11-08-2009, 07:31 PM

wow. that was so simple i didnt actually belive it when it worked. haha. it was the static mesh settings that were the case.. thanks a lot!

cycloverid

11-09-2009, 11:01 PM

This might be a stupid question, but...

How does one frame a shot in Unreal? -provided that the aspect ratio needs to be altered.

The properties of a camera actor allow this to be adjusted, but I am only able to view these changes in-game, not in-editor. It would make my life much easier to see the framing in-editor so I can make adjustments more quickly. Is there no way to do this?

Ben Apuna

11-10-2009, 01:29 AM

The only way I know is to set it up through kismet.

http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3cutscene.htm

When you've got the matinee widow open and have key framed a camera you can click on that key on the time line and your perspective viewport should be switched to the camera's view for that key.

If I remember correctly you can't (or shouldn't) edit anything in the level while in this view mode but you can move the camera and re-key it's position. When you close the matinee window the perspective viewport camera takes over but it uses the position and orientation of your camera actor's key. Then you can edit your level safely from your framed shot's view.

EDIT:

I'm not sure if this is the right setting, I always struggle to find it... but it might be helpful if you right click the Movement track of the camera and set it to "World Frame" rather than "Relative To Initial". That makes it a lot easier to position and key the camera from within matinee.