Pipeline workflow with Modo 601 and UDK please help!

AVBN5000

Hello! I have been looking around the internet in search of information regarding smoothing groups with Modo 601 and UDK and I am having troubles. I may be searching for the wrong things so here I am posting for help! I am wanting to begin development with UDK but I cant seem to get any FBX options within Modo. When importing into UDK it keeps complaining about smoothing groups. I know this is a normal option that can be checking in FBX settings in Maya...but I am having no such luck finding out what I need to do in Modo. Any guidance/help is most appreciated!! This is a new project I am working on with a new team and we are all excited to start! I am just needing to document pipeline workflow and keep things running smoothly. Thank you all! Happy modeling :-)

Tomm

hey, maybe you just have to check explicit normals when importing your mesh.

Also these links may help you.

http://www.zspline.net/blog/modo-401-to-unreal-part-i/
http://www.zspline.net/blog/2011/07/25/exportlayer-v1-3-for-modo-501/
http://forums.luxology.com/topic.aspx?f=37&t=41509

WarrenM

In Modo preferences, check your FBX setting. It has "Export Edge Smoothing" off by default. I have no idea why.

AVBN5000

Thank you Tomm and WarrenM! I will look into the suggestions you both provided. I will post back on here with results soon.

Bek

If its still not working you might want to check out PipelineIO script, it's awesome: http://www.arielchai.com/tutorials/resources.html

the pdf has examples of usage and one for UDK I believe.

AVBN5000

Sorry to get back so late on this topic. The solution within the settings for smoothing groups in Modo worked like a charm! Thank you for that.

Bek: I will check that workflow out as well. We are looking for a good solid pipeline to stick with.

Thank you all for such great resources! Go community!

Bek

Glad you got it working. I've started writing up a sort-of tutorial for setting up Modo for game art work, which so far covers:

Setting up pipelineIO (inc. setting hard edges by uv borders in modo)
exploding a mesh
creating a cage
basic form and input editor stuff
Baking selection/colour maps
baking diffuse info
(Possibly a basic UV editor video if there's any interest?)
and some other small tips/tricks to speed things up.

What I'm hoping is when it's done, other modo users will add their own discoveries, workflows etc so we'll have one nice big thread sharing our pipelines. I'm particularly interested in seeing all the different ways people will go about the one task, I know their are some big differences in how people choose to bake their models for example. Ideally even people who have had experience getting stuff from modo into UDK, unity, Cryengine or anything like that will be encouraged to do a small write up of their process on doing so. One of the challenges for those beginning with modo is the difficulty in finding examples/tutorials in comparison to more popular packages like max/maya, so I'd like to do my little bit to help close that gap.

Not sure when I'll be posting it, hopefully soon, I'm just waiting for some feedback from some other polycounters, who will hopefully have their own tips to add. I'm also not the most experienced modeller around here, so if any of the pros have any advice or want to contribute/read over what I've got so far, just send me a pm and I'll give you a link to the doc.