Numbered Doors, Changing Light Color, and Animations
polycounter lvl 10
I've been at it for six hours today finishing up door frames and the doors going with them and I had a few questions that I don't QUITE know how to go through with.
1. I have a locked door with a red light to show the player it's locked. Green for unlocked. Which would be the best way to go about creating this? Separate textures or can I use a Constant3Vector in its place?
2. I have three doors with a number on them, all currently the same but created textures with separate numbers on them. I'm trying to do this one to keep memory down. I need to get in that habit. Thoughts on going about this?
3. I've yet to look real hard for them but the doors I have are attached in 3ds Max as one piece but are separate models. Does UDK recognize this and can I create an animating door from within the engine?
I hope I was clear enough with what I'm looking to gain from this post. I appreciate any information that can be shared.
1. I have a locked door with a red light to show the player it's locked. Green for unlocked. Which would be the best way to go about creating this? Separate textures or can I use a Constant3Vector in its place?
2. I have three doors with a number on them, all currently the same but created textures with separate numbers on them. I'm trying to do this one to keep memory down. I need to get in that habit. Thoughts on going about this?
3. I've yet to look real hard for them but the doors I have are attached in 3ds Max as one piece but are separate models. Does UDK recognize this and can I create an animating door from within the engine?
I hope I was clear enough with what I'm looking to gain from this post. I appreciate any information that can be shared.
Replies
1) If you set up your texture and material appropriately, you could change the color of the light (If it's in the texture as emissive) by making it grayscale + Constant3Vector for your colour and using either a StaticBool or StaticSwitchParam and tying the material to a game state in Kismet. (I don't really know Kismet, but I'm fairly certain you could do that)
2) Depending on how the numbering is done, I would suggest using one texture for the base doors and a separate decal texture for the numbers. This way you could just have a small texture mapped to a plane just above the door and you only have to load in one big texture for the doors and a little material for the numbers.
3) From what I've seen, UDK will import the whole thing as one object if they are attached in Max. One way around this would be to have different root joints for the doors. The easiest solution is to separate out things you want as their own objects.
You can create an animating door within UDK using the Matinee tool, however I'm not certain if using Matinee or exporting out animation via FBX is better.
I don't know Kismet either but looking to learn to build on what I know already for environment art. I am currently using a grayscale image for my emissive with a Constant3Vector.
The decals I didn't even think of until you said something. Ha ha! That's a duh moment for me.
I was thinking about separating the objects out to animate my doors. But knowing little about Matinee, I didn't know how it would operate with the mesh I have in there right now.
x__x
/xxx \
|___|
I started with this....
x___x
|___|
You get the idea. I've tried BSP hollow with a BSP subtractive and in a rush I didn't get the results I was looking for. Work beckons and if this is the route to go, I'll try again afterwards. I've looked into Edit Geometry Mode. Didn't really mess with it too much, can this do the trick?