UDK - Rotating Skydome

Habboi

Such a simple thing and yet I'm unable to figure it out in UDK. I just want to make the mesh OR the material rotate 360 degrees to give the illusion of moving clouds.

I'm not looking for anything detailed and if this was Source I'd just parent it to a func_rotating.

Annoyingly Google links to some old Unreal 3 methods like using the movement tab on an interp actor which doesn't work for me. I tried it with more than one mesh. Another was to use matinee or kis to rotate it but it's stupidly complex.

I then tried a simple panner but because my skydome material uses Polar Coordinates it can't pan but rotate.

Can anyone give me a simple answer?

Oniram

if its using polar coordinates then just use a rotator instead of a panner.

WarrenM

Turning it into an interp actor, setting the rotation rate, and setting the phyics to PHYS_Interpolating should work (or maybe PHYS_Rotating). It won't work in the editor viewport though, you'll have to be in the level to see it (either loaded standalone or in PIE).

Vailias

Have you not looked at the skydome materials that come with udk? They do this.

Oniram

and there's also this

http://juarez3d.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/tutorial_animated_skydome_v1-3.pdf

Habboi

It won't work in the editor viewport though.

Oh...well I guess I should have tested that but usually everything else works in the viewport. I'll test it out and let you know. Cheers all.

edit:

Yeah that worked fine. I guess the lesson learnt is that you should test stuff ingame rather than rely on viewport all the time.

In regards to the other methods, under normal circumstances I'd probably use a material shader / node but for this scene I only need a slow rotation since the skydome has everything including the clouds. Thanks again.

WarrenM

Well, the material based method WOULD work in the editor viewport but anything where you have to move actors around or spin them needs to be viewed in the game. The editor won't handle stuff like that.

ambershee

If you're rotating the entire skybox, go with the interp actor route. Because your skydome/box is unlit and has no kind of physics/collision you can save on a couple of texture coordinate manipulations you don't need; the physical rotation doesn't cost anything. This is a really, really minor point though; a little texture coordinate fiddling is pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things.