Maya to UDK - Physics/Dynamics Simulations - Need Help

[Kuki]

Hi guys, I already started a similar discussion but never received feedbacks.

I am starting to work on a project in which I will have to bake maya physics simulation (a building that crash into pieces etc...) and import these animations to Udk.

I'd like to know every useful information/tutorial about the workflow behind this kind of task. The Udk documentation doesn't cover the topic at all. Every advice is appreciated.


Thanks :)

[Lamont]

If it's already busted into bits and it's just hard-body, then go ahead and turn that whole thing into a series of morphs. It would be a giant character pretty much.

[Kuki]

Thanks for the advice but I am really still "newbie" so I'd like to approach the task little by little, could someone suggest some good tutorial to start workin with physics from maya to Udk?

[Lamont]

Could someone suggest some good tutorial to start workin with physics from maya to Udk?There are none as far as I know.

I figured something out. It's a bit of a process and I got it to work, but I don't know how hard you can push it, and the max bone count per skeletal mesh will be reached if it's a huge number of bits for the simulation. What I did was create the meshes, put a joint in the center of each bit, then did the parent constrain on the bones to each bit it was attached to. From there I ran the simulation, then I baked the keys down on the joints. Removed the simulation from the geometry and removed the parent constraint on the bones. Then I exported the data and brought it into UDK, it automatically linked the animations and it played just fine.

If this is still a bit of a foggy mess, I can make a video and upload source data and files.

I take that back about the max bones per skeletal mesh, each bit will be it's own character. So I'd make a folder per building and import into there.

[Kuki]

Thanks Lamont. Your workflow description is really helpful. Don't wanna ask you to make a video, it's really too much :) . I'll make some tests and report any problems. Thanks