UDK - Workflow scale issue

Elod.H

Hello,

I've began studying UDK and it's going wonderfully so far, although I have encountered a problem. It has to do with scale.

I have a scene in 3DSMax, which is a pretty big environmental piece. Inside Max, I did not want to scale it up to huge proportions so I wouldn't have scale issues in ZBrush.
The models pretty much cover up the grid as seen below:



Originally, the scale of this was about 6-7 times bigger in Max, but some brushes did not work properly when I imported models into ZBrush... hence I scaled everything down.

My problem is that when I import the stuff into UDK, it is so tiny it's unbelievable. I can't even navigate the camera with the slowest Camera Movement Speed.



A quick solution is to immediately scale the models up inside UDK, but I was wondering if this is the best way to resolve the issue.
Should I scale everything up in Max after I reimport everything after the sculpt? And then import like that in UDK? OR is there anyway to avoid all the scaling?

Could anyone shed some light on how to handle the scale of your models throughout the work pipeline?

Thank you!

James Ordner

I just scale everything up when I export. Not manually, but though one of the options in the export dialogue. In Blender, the scale is 1 UU = 1 Blender unit, and 16 UU = ~1 foot. So in Blender I model as if 1 Blender unit = 1 foot, and just set the 'Scale' parameter in the export dialogue to 16.

Elod.H

Hmm, I see. When I export from Max as an .ASE file, I don't have a scale option. At the moment it seems I have to do it manually.

Paunescu.Daniel

i know that when i export as .FBX from 3ds max and import it in UDK it goes like this: 1 3ds max unit = 1 unreal unit, no matter the unit system used in max, don't know about .ASE though

Elod.H

That seems all right, but 1 unit in Unreal is very very small, isn`t it? If I create a cube in 3DSMax that covers 2x2 units.. that will be 2x2 units in Unreal as well. But, this 2x2 is so small it is almost impossible to navigate around it...

So, everything seems to be in order. I was confused as what I should do if I want to take my asset into ZBrush. If i work for Unreal scale from the creation of the base mesh.. then I will have scale issues in ZB. But, as I see it now: you model normally as you would.. and then when you are ready to export from Max and import into UDK, you scale the model up.
Does that seem logical?

Jacky

You should be exporting as FBX, it's more reliable than ASE now. That way you'll also be able to set scale units during export as mentioned.

Elod.H

Thanks, Jacky! That actually helps solve the issue.

If anyone has more tips, suggestions on the matter, I`m more than willing to listen.
Thanks for the help so far people .

Elod.H

Another question: I can't seem to Undo in Geometry Mode. I moved around some vertices and extruded some stuff, but decided that it wasn't the best approach, so I want to undo. But.. it does not Undo anything of the modeling I have done.
Any thoughts?