UDK & Maya questions

Benjam

Hey guys,

I am in the process of re-doing a scene from my portfolio and I need to get into the habit of using a game engine so i was going to use UDK.

I was just wondering, is it better to make and texture objects in maya and import them into UDK or to texture the ibjects in UDK? Also is it as easy as in Max to import objects into UDK?

Cheers guys!

passerby

what do you mean by texture objects.

and maya to udk us just like in max, just export as fbx, and import that to udk.

Benjam

When i say texture objects i mean like how you texture something in maya, assigning a material texture like concrete to a floor or wood to a chair etc. inside of maya. or is it best done within UDK?

imbueFX

You must do that inside of UDK. Exporting materials/shaders and importing them into UDK is impossible.

passerby

you have to make your materials in UDK, and import textures to udk yourself, as far as materials go all oyur doing in maya is setting the material id's

m4dcow

While the UDK FBX importer does have the option of importing shader networks you have setup in Maya, they are a pain to edit (every node is overlaid in the material editor) and tend to confuse the pipeline later on in the process.

FlynT

imbueFX wrote: »

You must do that inside of UDK. Exporting materials/shaders and importing them into UDK is impossible.

It is possible to import materials to the udk, as stated here http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FBXMaterialPipeline.html

but its a bit useless in my opinion. Materials will land in the same package as your mesh and contain only the linked connections to their corresponding channels.

Benjam

so when i make an environment in maya i should do so untextured but have the UV's and textures ready so that when i import it into UDK i can simply assign the textures to the diffuse channel on specific objects?

Am i right in thinking this?

passerby

kinda, udk uses a node based material editor, so just import your models all UV'ed, and your textures, in the cotent browsers create materails and drag your diffuse, spec, normals, and any other textures you got, and hook them up. Than apply that material to the model.

FlynT

Don't get us wrong here, you can texture your mesh in maya the way you want, as long as you don't enable the embed media flag inside the FBX exporter.

Benjam

Ok cool, what do you guys think is best practice. Texturing them in Maya and then importing them or doing it all in UDK?

Benjam

Oh yeah and also, when im making my scene in maya or 3DS max should i make the whole scene and then export each individual asset out as separate FBX files?

Cheers the for help guys!

FlynT

My workflow for UVing/Texturing is as follows. (Simplified)

1. In Maya or Max whatever you prefer, add a basic checker texture to the mesh maybe something with numbers to see the rotation of the uv's better.

2. Fire up your favorite image editing program and do the general texture stuff.

3. Import the Mesh, Textures into the UDK.

4. Create a Material for it and start building it up.

5. Apply it to the mesh.

Benjam

I like this workflow sounds like a plan to me. for static meshes if for example i create an entire scene in maya/max should i export each individual element out separately so that each object i.e. a chair, set of rails, book, altar etc. are all individual when in UDK?

FlynT

Sure you can model complete scenes and then export your meshes separately. You might have a look at modularity.

Polycount Wiki with tons of great links to this topic


UDN Page about Modular Environment creation


Lee Perry on Modular Level Design, might look outdated but everything works PDF


Nate Stephens on Environment Modeling in Maya for me the most complex and complete tutorial. He shows some great techniques on how to work with Maya. But its not free