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Unreal Engine 3 - MASTER THREAD

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  • quyeno
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    quyeno polycounter lvl 17
    Hi guys,

    I'm looking for some help and would be grateful if someone could point me to a tut or explain the workflow. I basically want to create an outdoor level with buildings which have interiors (similar to call of duty per say). What I would like to know is what would be the best way to create those buildings?

    Should it be created as one basic static mesh which is the building and roof with basic rooms and corridors then use instanced details like windows, doors, columns, pipes, etc..to detail it?

    or

    Should the building be modularised? How should the building be broken up? Should modular sections include the internal walls?

    I'm understand the modular concept but a bit confused as to what extent it should be used and how to break up a building into modular parts....again a tut explaining the concept in detail would be most helpful.

    thanks
    Quyeno
  • nrek
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    nrek polycounter lvl 14
    This may be a stupid question but I have looked at various tuts and still cant figure it out. How would I add specularity to a semi transparent object. For example a hose that is semi transparent, or like a decal of a number that I want to have some spec to it. I cant use BLEND_masked because it dosnt fade from transparent to semi transparent, and setting it to BLEND_translucent wont allow me to use my spec maps. If anyone knows what I am missing or how to work around it that would be great.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    for semi transparent stuff you kinda have to fake specularity by adding a reflection via the camera vector and plugging it into a cube map and a mask node with R and G ticked not B though (so it tells it to use X and Y) to get a sense of specularity, kinda lame but thats the only way I know of.
  • nrek
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    nrek polycounter lvl 14
    Ok cool, thanks for the quick reply PixelMasher.
  • Okt
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    Okt polycounter lvl 19
    I'm getting an 3597 'unmatched Node ID' Physique skin vertex errors encountered. error when I try to export my model from max using ActorX, I have the mesh linked to the b_Root, when I can successfully get an export to not crash unreal it gives me the mesh, but with all the bip_ helpers as the associated bones. Anyone run into an error like this and has some sort of methodology to finding the error and fixing it?

    Thanks.
  • 00Zero
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    how can I FORCE the "lighting needs to be rebuilt" message to GTFO of my renders? ive been building the lighting for my models in groups, so i think i might have missed a couple of objects, but i dont really care. is there a way i can make this disapear?...without rebuildling...
  • warby
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    warby polycounter lvl 18
    no you have to do a real rebuild
  • Reverenddevil
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    Reverenddevil polycounter lvl 9
    Can someone show me a good setup for making this shader work properly? I just want to create some objects that fade when intersecting other objects but not sure exactly what to plugin and where. Thanks...
  • ImSlightlyBored
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    ImSlightlyBored polycounter lvl 13
    opacity < depthbasedalpha

    alpha node and bias should be a single vector (I think... only ever used constant1 on these)
    alpha is strength of opacity, and bias I think is the strength of the feathering.
    In the depthbasedalpha node, mess with the value of biasscale, I've normally used around 500.

    Not sure if you can use this as a lerp mask or something, you most likely can, can't see why not.


    Make sure your mat is unlit/translucent. I think UE3 will shout out a red warning at you if its not, so don't worry too much.
  • Reverenddevil
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    Reverenddevil polycounter lvl 9
    Could you show a qucik node based representation? Thanks.
  • mLichy
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    Does anyone know how to setup a material so that it has a static cube map/environment map applied to it? So I can get some decent looking reflections?

    thanks,
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    juss add a cubemap onto your diffuse o.o
  • ColinR
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    ColinR polycounter lvl 9
    mLichy wrote: »
    Does anyone know how to setup a material so that it has a static cube map/environment map applied to it? So I can get some decent looking reflections?

    thanks,

    I got some help from Matroskin a while back on this as I was trying to simulate a mirror mat. I don't think he'll mind me pasting the info he sent me, and it makes sense to have it in this thread.

    So credit to Matroskin for this.
    Matroskin wrote:
    Actually i had a bit of a pain in the ass trying to get real mirror thing.

    In general there exist several ways that i discovered to get reflection fake or real. They give different effects so chose your poison :)

    ____1) Reflection vector.
    This is similar to classical environment map. That is to say not a real reflection but a fake. Here is the way u can do it (image made by salman_fas, i just can't find where he posted it):

    refletionvectorfy7.jpg

    _____2) Cube or Shpere map.
    This also gives fake reflection and shows only level geometry.
    Here is a way u can do it (posted here http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=59574&page=2 by Pope Adam):

    http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z105/williafx/cubemaptutiz5.jpg

    _____3) U can also create a sort of surface that gets what a camera captures.
    Gives an effect on a security cam screen. Check a tutorial here:

    http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3reflections.htm

    _______4) Actual mirror :)
    Honestly, i did not master it well enough yet and it keeps giving me some issues. For example, I cannot cook successfully my scene but i can view it in editor and play within the editor. If u do it just for portfolio it is ok, but for actual UT3 map it wont work. If you will get your scene cooked with this mirror please tell me, Ill be curious how u got it :)

    U need to create SceneCaptureReflectActor form SceneCaptureActor group. In it's properties assign Render to Texture shader.

    Basically you can assign any mesh to this reflection actor but the reflection in that mesh looks sort of wierd so i kept hte default plane.

    I made my broken mirror mesh with alpha on its glass. Then, I placed reflection actor right under my mirror's glass surface. That's probably cheap but i wanted to have mirror and i did not know how to do it more efficiently. So in fact u don't see mirror with reflective surface but u see non-reflective mirror through which u see reflection actor. Dirt in mirror's alpha adds to the old mirror effect.
    On the image u see my scaled and adjusted reflection actor and actual mirror mesh on the side:

    mirrorii0.jpg

    Btw, in "render to texture" shader u can set resolution of reflection. This way u can optimize rendering a bit.

    Hope that helps you a little.
  • mLichy
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    Sweet, thanks :). I'm not trying to create a mirror effect really, I just want to have a reflective metal surface. Specular only does so much, but adding the subtle reflection would be nice. I will try and setup what you have and see how that works.


    Edit: I made the cubemap with no problem, but I'm a little confused on how to setup the shader... Here is what I have.. The texture sample connected to the reflection vector has the Cube material applied to it.


    materialn.th.jpg
    my.php?image=materialn.jpg
  • ImSlightlyBored
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    ImSlightlyBored polycounter lvl 13
    hey man
    basically your error says tex co-ord input is wrong, its a float3 (reflection vector is X,Y and Z) and you need to put in a float2, (X and Y in this case)
    Add in a component mask node between the reflection vector and the texture sample node and tick R and G only. This'll knock it down to a float2.

    Cannot see what your Lerp mask is doing (if its full black just throw in a constant1??) but it might just be that the window hasn't updated, if so ignore me : D

    edit: little confused. What is your texture sample referencing? it should just be a normal bitmap, not cubemap laid out or anything, I think


    Reverenddevil
    I probably can't, not at work till tuesday and lack UE3 here so that was from my head. Someone else might get chance before I do, just don't want to seem rude, sorry!
  • mLichy
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    Ok, well I kind of got it to work, but it only works if I put in my diffuse map from the object into that lower texture sample, instead of the cube map. Where does the cube map go into then?


    thanks
  • Reverenddevil
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    Reverenddevil polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks slightly...
  • |*BILLY$CLINT*|
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    |*BILLY$CLINT*| polycounter lvl 11
    Sorry MegaMoogle I was at the GDC but I am back this week so I can try and help you out with your issue use less you got it working that is.
  • MegaMoogle
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    MegaMoogle polycounter lvl 9
    |*BILLY*| wrote: »
    Sorry MegaMoogle I was at the GDC but I am back this week so I can try and help you out with your issue use less you got it working that is.

    Thank you Billy, I'm still having issues. It doesn't seem to work in any of Unreal's levels, but my character does work when I import her piece by piece as a skeletal mesh into my own custom level.
  • Minos
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    Minos polycounter lvl 16
    ColinR wrote: »
    I got some help from Matroskin a while back on this as I was trying to simulate a mirror mat. I don't think he'll mind me pasting the info he sent me, and it makes sense to have it in this thread.

    So credit to Matroskin for this.



    Hope that helps you a little.

    Thanks a lot for reposting this, you saved my ass =)
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    hmmm is there any way to create caustics inside unreal? my best guess would be a light function, but are there better ways? light functions als always multiplying right? i guess caustics should be additive to look correct?
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    Could use a decal, If i remember correctly I think bioshock's presentation said they used modulate and went higher than 1
  • |*BILLY$CLINT*|
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    |*BILLY$CLINT*| polycounter lvl 11
    Neox wrote: »
    hmmm is there any way to create caustics inside unreal? my best guess would be a light function, but are there better ways? light functions als always multiplying right? i guess caustics should be additive to look correct?

    There is no way to do "real" caustics you have to fake it using a light function or decal. I would go light function as I get better results as decals tend to stretch and smear to much for my liking.
  • ImSlightlyBored
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    ImSlightlyBored polycounter lvl 13
    I'd just go the way of hiding it in material shader with a 1/0 switch and apply it via world vector somehow?

    to me it'd be the quickest/cheapest way... surely???
    not sure of the expense of light functions though
  • Vredesbyrd
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    hello :
    a question I imported my mesh and overwritten my existing package.
    Instead of making a new material , I duplicated my existing material , the material network is pretty big.
    I added the mesh which is a building as a actor in the scene, the mesh is still visible.
    But when I play it in the editor , the mesh turns invisible
  • mLichy
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    Did you rebuild lightmaps and apply the new material to it? Or drop a new version of the model?
  • Vredesbyrd
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    mLichy thanks for you effort to answer.
    I fixed it by pressing Refresh, and cleaning the bsp.
    And i haven't rendered or rebuilded the lightmaps.
  • |*BILLY$CLINT*|
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    |*BILLY$CLINT*| polycounter lvl 11
    Vredesbyrd wrote: »
    hello :
    a question I imported my mesh and overwritten my existing package.
    Instead of making a new material , I duplicated my existing material , the material network is pretty big.
    I added the mesh which is a building as a actor in the scene, the mesh is still visible.
    But when I play it in the editor , the mesh turns invisible

    You need to re-save your map and your package and that should clear this up. Unreal makes a temp copy of your level when you do a right-click play from here so that might be what is happening here.
  • Minos
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    Minos polycounter lvl 16
    I'm having a really hard time trying to figure out how to make a decal reflect a cubemap. I already managed to place the cubemaps in the scene but I can't get the damn decal to even show up ingame. And yeah I read hourences tutorial =/
  • mLichy
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    Ya, I'm still not 100% sure on how to do reflections. I kind of got something working, but it's quite minimal. I think I just have a texcoord with the cubemap material with a camera vector linked to it into the diffuse. Then my model is textured with the spec map at the moment.... it works, but isn't right...
  • Slainean
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    Slainean polycounter lvl 18
    Minotaur0 - Did you create a new decal material and not a regular material? I don't know if it will work with a regular material. Also make sure the decal "box" overlaps with whatever surface you are trying to project onto with the correct orientation.

    mLichy - Here is a basic cubemap I made. I used an alpha to mask the reflections to just the window and multiplied them to get a purple color. There's a couple other ways of doing this, so this is just one example.

    ue3cube.th.jpg
  • mLichy
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    Hey, thanks alot man :). I will save that to my tutorials folder and try it out.
  • |*BILLY$CLINT*|
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    |*BILLY$CLINT*| polycounter lvl 11
    Minotaur0 wrote: »
    I'm having a really hard time trying to figure out how to make a decal reflect a cubemap. I already managed to place the cubemaps in the scene but I can't get the damn decal to even show up ingame. And yeah I read hourences tutorial =/

    I don't think that this will work due to the complexity of decals and reflection maps. I could be wrong but it sounds like this would be to much for the rendering engine to do.

    Have you tried light functions to get the same result? Give those a try.
  • ae.
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    ae. polycounter lvl 12
    Hey guys im going to start work on a vehicle pretty soon for a mod, and i got a few questions concerning how i would go about it in ut3 as the mods for ut3.

    basically what im doing is making a vehicle but also making it full cockpit too, the cockpit is basically the hud and to see your health and ammo and switch weapons you need to go into cockpit view.

    what i need to know is how i would go about modeling and implementing something like this in the unreal engine.

    would i have to model the cockpit as a seperate object? or keep it with the main vehicle model?

    how do they do it for car games that use the unreal engine/ any engine really? do they make the interior a different object and somehow attach them both ingame?
  • Daaaave
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    Hi All

    I've been working on a custom character, however this utilises an entirely new bones hierarchy and animation rig. rather than the epic rig. This is due to the character being a quadriped crab character. see attached image.

    so far i've got the skeleton and mesh imported into the engine as well as some of the basic animations. from this i've managed to get an animation tree set up as well as the animationSets

    i've managed to get the mesh imported as an extension of UTPawn. however there are many errors; there's no animation and the mesh flickers and the player moves.

    i'd really like to get this character working in game. any help with this would be appreciated and of course would be credited.

    AnimationTree.jpg
    animationSets.jpg
    skeletonInUnreal.jpg

    below is the example of the mesh in game the half of the image on the right shows how the mesh disappears
    drawDistanceError.jpg
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    and again i have some questions :7

    number 1: i once made that work but it doesn't work anymore, i have a skeletal mesh that i want to have collision on, i added a physics asset and it shows the collision in in the game (consolecommand 'show collision') but unless i make the skeletal mesh use per poly collision the player doesn't react on the object at all fixed needed to turn some options inside the Phat editor on.... >_<

    1.b - if i add the physics asset (kasset to the game it also doesn't cast a modulated shadow but the normal one, is there a way to turn that off? it destroys the shadow color ^^

    number 2: is it possible to loop a particle animation over the lifetime? i made some insects and they work with random image but no i'd like to have some birds and i want them to loop an animation over their lifetime, and i can't figure out how to do that :/
  • |*BILLY$CLINT*|
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    |*BILLY$CLINT*| polycounter lvl 11
    Daaaave wrote: »
    Hi All

    I've been working on a custom character, however this utilises an entirely new bones hierarchy and animation rig. rather than the epic rig. This is due to the character being a quadriped crab character. see attached image.

    so far i've got the skeleton and mesh imported into the engine as well as some of the basic animations. from this i've managed to get an animation tree set up as well as the animationSets

    i've managed to get the mesh imported as an extension of UTPawn. however there are many errors; there's no animation and the mesh flickers and the player moves.

    i'd really like to get this character working in game. any help with this would be appreciated and of course would be credited.

    AnimationTree.jpg
    animationSets.jpg
    skeletonInUnreal.jpg

    below is the example of the mesh in game the half of the image on the right shows how the mesh disappears
    drawDistanceError.jpg

    Okay a couple of things I noticed that you might want to take a look at.

    1: In the picture that is split into two where you show the crab, I am not understanding what this is supposed to be. Is the crab disappearing or does it load up and then go away. Please explain this more.

    2: Do you have a better picture of your anim tree as the one you have there does not show all the nodes you are using and I cant zoom in on it to see what nodes you might be missing/using incorrectly.

    3: While extending off of UT pawn is a good starting off point it is going to give you errors as it was coded for biped like characters and not ones like yours. So with that said I would look at GOW I and see how they setup and spawned some of their creatures that are not human. If memory servers me correctly there are some non-biped creatures in GOW I. Also look at Grape Ape's Old Skool Monster Tools for UT2K4. While the editor is different than UT3 editor, the code is quite similar so many things that you did via code in UT2K4 can be done in relativity the same manner in UT3.

    Neox wrote: »
    and again i have some questions :7

    number 1: i once made that work but it doesn't work anymore, i have a skeletal mesh that i want to have collision on, i added a physics asset and it shows the collision in in the game (consolecommand 'show collision') but unless i make the skeletal mesh use per poly collision the player doesn't react on the object at all fixed needed to turn some options inside the Phat editor on.... >_<

    1.b - if i add the physics asset (kasset to the game it also doesn't cast a modulated shadow but the normal one, is there a way to turn that off? it destroys the shadow color ^^

    number 2: is it possible to loop a particle animation over the lifetime? i made some insects and they work with random image but no i'd like to have some birds and i want them to loop an animation over their lifetime, and i can't figure out how to do that :/

    While there is no real way to say this without sounding like a total Dick so I am just going to say it. You really need to proof read your posts before posting them as they are a bit hard to follow. I used to just post with out reading my post but I found that you get a lot more help if your post are well written. If English is not your primary language then I apologize for this and you can disregard this. Now on to the help!

    1: So if I understand you correctly you have an asset that you want to put collision on Via the PhAT editor? Is this correct? Or am I missing something here. If all you want to do is have the player collide with the object you need to make sure that they are both on the same collision channel under the collision proprieties in Unreal.

    1A: Yes you can turn off the shadows of any actor by going under it's proprieties in the lighting section and un-checking the cast shadow option.

    2: You can loop a particle to do what you are talking about but I am not sure where in cascade you would add that option. But I do know that you can do it.
  • Kovac
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    Kovac polycounter lvl 18
    Neox are you saying you want an animated mesh as a particle or just an animated sprite? Mesh particles are limited to just a static mesh so any skeletal animations won't be able to be imported and you'd be better off having a programmer look into the simple flock AI for it. If you're talking about an animated sprite:

    Create a 4x4 or whatever texture
    When creating the material, don't use a standard TexCord to plug your texture in, use Particle SubUV
    Set respective masked/translucent blending options
    In Cascade's required parameters scroll down until you see the SubUV section
    Set the number of rows/columns (2, 2 in this case) EDIT: make sure you set the Interpolation Method as well to Linear or LinearBlend
    Right click to add the subUV module SubImage Index
    Leave the inValue as 0 and set the out value to the last frame of your sprite (4 in this case)

    It should animate through the sprite now based on the lifetime of the particle... hopefully that is along the lines of what you were looking for.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    @|*BILLY$CLINT*| : i just wanted to create a skeletal mesh that the player blocks and i tried and tried and tried but i could always run through it, i just missed some options in the Phat Editor

    for 1a: no i don't want to turn off the shadow i want it to cast a modulated shadow as it's the only object in the scene that casts a normal (black) shadow while all the others cast modulated (blue) shadows

    @Kovac: as far as i know this is exactly what i did, but what it does is playing the animation once over the lifetime, what i want it to do is loop it over the entire lifetime, so lets say i spawn a flock of birds far away and let them fly over the level, this will take a while till they can fade out, so i need the particles to loop over that time and not start the animation and stay in the last frame for the rest of their lifetime.
  • seforin
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    seforin polycounter lvl 17
    im not sure if someone asked this before, but is there a way to take high rez photos of things in unreal thats just the prop by itself/mesh by itself (ive seen people do this and show work before I just dont understand how they do this)
  • ImSlightlyBored
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    ImSlightlyBored polycounter lvl 13
    its on the eat3d website as to how to get the screen as just your prop, no unreal watermark
    and to take a high res shot, use PIE and console command tiledshot
    it takes a huge screenshot.
  • Kovac
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    Kovac polycounter lvl 18
    @Neox: Ah... duh! Sorry for some reason I read your post and didn't even think about the actual problem. This will work though!

    Import texture with FlipBook checked
    Add FlipbookSample and use it as your diffuse instead of a TextureSample
    Go to the textures properties (double click it) and set the horizontal and vertical image counts, as well as possible framerate adjustments
    Add it as a standard material to Cascade (remove all that subUV crap)

    It will continuously loop through the particle's lifetime with this at the framerate you set it as.

    The one problem with this is that every particle will be in sync with each other (all birds flap at the same time) but having it spawn a different material could break that up a bit. If I find any solutions to that I'll follow up.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    thanks for the help, will add some birds to airborn now :D
  • |*BILLY$CLINT*|
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    |*BILLY$CLINT*| polycounter lvl 11
    Neox wrote: »
    @|*BILLY*| : i just wanted to create a skeletal mesh that the player blocks and i tried and tried and tried but i could always run through it, i just missed some options in the Phat Editor

    for 1a: no i don't want to turn off the shadow i want it to cast a modulated shadow as it's the only object in the scene that casts a normal (black) shadow while all the others cast modulated (blue) shadows

    The PhAT editor is only for setting up joint's constraints, rotations, and limits. While it does play a role in your collision it's not the primary source of the collision.In the animation browser you should see an option to define collision bones(AFC ATM) and even turn on per-poly collision. I will look more when I get home to see if I can figure something out.
  • Gannon
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    Gannon interpolator
    quick question, How do you make terrain double sided in UE3? I would like to see the texture on both sides and the materials already double sided so i know that's not it. :x
  • |*BILLY$CLINT*|
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    |*BILLY$CLINT*| polycounter lvl 11
    [quote=
    rdmlegend
    ;930941]quick question, How do you make terrain double sided in UE3? I would like to see the texture on both sides and the materials already double sided so i know that's not it. :x[/quote]

    AFAIK Can not do that as the terrain shader system will not allow you to. But what you can do is either take another terrain actor and turn it upside down or make a static mesh that does what you want it to do and use that.

    What are you trying to do exactly?
  • Gannon
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    Gannon interpolator
    just trying to make cutting holes in terrain easier really :p I'm making a Mine shaft and need an access for the elevator to descend from. Was mostly just curious to see if it was possible. It's really annoying trying to sculpt terrain looking up.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    for something like that it would probably be best to model it and have it be a few static meshes.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    for something like that it would probably be best to model it and have it be a few static meshes.

    would be my best guess too

    having a new issue :/
    i created a soundcue and start it with kismet when a certain actor is spawned, but no matter what i do, i can't seam to stop it once the actor is killed, i plugged everything into the stop plug, destroyed, death, and take damage, but it doesn't react it is still bound to the already dead actor and plays and plays

    @kovac: that worked, thanks again, thought the particle sub uv would be the way to go with particles, but flipbook just works perfect :)
  • Apophis3d
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    Ive started doing series of video tutorials for UT3, this sort of looks like a good place to post that info. The tutorials can be found on my community site here Apophis3D.net
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