whats best closed or open meshes in UDK

HAWK12HT

Hi all, so im making a railing for balcony, its round and have poles under it. Now i know for lightmas to work proper mesh have to be closed and proper lightmapped UVs are required. But given the task i think its just too much poly for a railing system in balcony which players wont even notice that much while running around map .

So just your opinion is required if thats ok to do (open meshes) or stitched in UDK.
Note i will later make custom collision UCX too for this mesh.

I ll post results soon too. Just wanna be 100% sure on my approach .

Thank you

JamesWild

HAWK12HT wrote: »

Now i know for lightmas to work proper mesh have to be closed

Do they? There's probably situations in which they do but I'm yet to see a real problem anywhere with handrail meshes in our worlds without bottoms or trim pieces without backs.

HAWK12HT wrote: »

Note i will later make custom collision UCX too for this mesh.

If it's just a straight piece of handrail, a cuboid collision field is quite optimal. UDK can generate one based on the mesh's AABB which will probably do.

HAWK12HT

HAWK12HT

Hmm guess im losing memory lol. This is made up of several meshes than attached, so far only problem i am seeing is pixely diffuse, i have disabled mipmap which gives a bit more desired result.
However i dont see and lightmass issues even though the shield type stuff on railing is just hanging and interesecting on it.

Im using 1 1024 sheet, I assume there is no way to avoid stretching and pixelation with this approach as you just basically just come up with models and try to find best use of your texture to get some what believeable result.

HAWK12HT

Also collison works fantastic, i just made a box for base and made the railing ones from the base too by detaching polys from original balcony base, applying shell modifier and adjusting height. and the usual stuff to make it work.

In UDK default game type wont shoot past railings but through gaps i can see plasma going in distance. Im kinda lost cause how UDK does that, i have basically like a wall all around the railings as UCX. Clever UDK.

JamesWild

It uses the visible model as collision for weapons, the convex/per poly collision is just for rigid bodies and pawns.

HAWK12HT

ah i see. Thank you for your feedback man. I ll be updaing this post with known issues or confusions
more like a master thread for me and others in same dilema. :P

passerby

ya most engines, use the real model for hit scane collsions and some projectiles, the ucx part is pretty much just for players and physics props.

HAWK12HT

God that is just insane programming work i think. Funny i have a degree in software development but i make art for a living . Neways, please dont delete this post. I know the topics such as Modularity , shaders are covered in detail here. However its not one fix for everything so I will keep asking for help on my project here, I hope i will not upset anyone and community will be help ful as always

Cheers.