Which is the most effective way to make simple prop animations like rotating fans and such?
for anything that simply rotates constantly, use an interp actor with phys_rotating applied and specify the rotation amount per axis. That's the absolute simplest way, no kismet, no matinee.
for anything that simply rotates constantly, use an interp actor with phys_rotating applied and specify the rotation amount per axis. That's the absolute simplest way, no kismet, no matinee.
Yep.
Rotators (fans, etc.)
Creating a continuously rotating InterpActor is very simple and is one of the most basic functions of the actor. A rotator type InterpActor does not require any work with Unreal Kismet or Matinee.
1. Select the desired StaticMesh in the Generic Browser.
2. Insert the InterpActor into the map and position it where desired.
3. Make sure that the actor pivot location is correct for where the rotator spins.
4. Open the actor properties dialog and set the following values:
Collision.BlockRigidBody = False.
If the InterpActor is to collide with rigid body actors then set this to True. This defaults to False.
Collision.CollisionType = COLLIDE_BlockAll.
If the InterpActor is to collide with other actors and to cast shadows.
Display.DrawScale and Display.DrawScale3D.X,Y,Z as desired.
For the size of the InterpActor. All of these default to 1.0.
DynamicSMActor.LightEnvironment.DynamicLightEnvironmentComponent.AmbientGlow.A,R,G,B as desired.
For additional brightening of the InterpActor. These default to A = 1.0, R = 0.0, G = 0.0, B = 0.0.
DynamicSMActor.LightEnvironment.bCastShadows = False.
If you want the InterpActor to cast shadows then set this to True. This defaults to True. Depending on the InterpActor design and its use in the map, the dynamic shadows may not look appropriate.
DynamicSMActor.LightEnvironment.LightEnvironmentComponent.bEnabled = False.
Set this true if you are using a LightEnvironment with this InterpActor.
InterpActor.bContinueOnEncroachPhysicsObject = True.
If the InterpActor is to continue even if a PHYS_RigidBody actor is near. This defaults to True.
InterpActor.bDestroyProjectilesOnEncroach = True.
If the InterpActor is to blow up projectiles that collide with it. This defaults to True.
InterpActor.bStopOnEncroach = True.
If the InterpActor is to stop when it gets close to another actor. This defaults to True.
Movement.Location as desired to place the InterpActor in the map.
Movement.Physics = PHYS_Rotating, so that the InterpActor always rotates on its origin pivot during the game.
Movement.Rotation.Pitch,Roll,Yaw as desired to orient the InterpActor in the map.
Movement.RotationRate.Yaw as desired to specify the speed at which the InterpActor rotates.
Higher values are faster speeds. A value of 300 to 500 is common for exhaust fans.
5. Add the desired lighting style as mentioned previously in this tutorial.
6. Insert an AmbientSoundSimple actor if you wish to associate a looping ambient sound to the InterpActor, such as the noise from a spinning fan.
Test the map in the Play-In-Editor to check the rotator motion.
When i change the normalmap compression the texture changes to a darker blue, doesnt feel all that right
Doesnt look weird in the editor though. Also. Got any good suggestions for getting sharper textures in udk? Seems like the diffuse is getting blurry. Texturegroup skybox, lodbias -1 is what i do now. Anything else?
For your normal map, make sure all four of your Unpack Max settings are set to 1 and Unpack Min [0],[1], and [2] settings are set to -1. If that doesn't work just re-import with one of the Normal map compression schemes.
TEXTUREGROUP_RenderTarget will allow you to use higher resolution textures than TEXTUREGROUP_Skybox. I think LODBias can go to -2 as well (though this setting never seemed to do much for me...)
Yup I think you should leave that one set to 0. By default TC_Normalmap compression should set all of the Unpack Max to 1 and the Unpack Min [0],[1], and [2] to -1, it leaves the [3] setting at 0.
JordanW explained a bit about this stuff one page back, here and here. Oh it looks like you also need to uncheck sRGB, that's probably what's causing your normal map to be the "off" blue color.
Would you use matinee or InterpActor? Because it would seem to me since the speed would depend on the actor pushing, and then on top of that, the physics pushing out from the center. So someone jumping off would go further than normal. So I dont know what would be used.
Also, any ideas with the bicycle problem? Again, the problem is I can see how animation alone can work to match up exactly with the rotation of wheels/pedals? Hence the IK attachments. Is there somewhere else I should post this complex issue to? BeyondUnreal? UDK forums havent helped much as of yet.
Would you use matinee or InterpActor? Because it would seem to me since the speed would depend on the actor pushing, and then on top of that, the physics pushing out from the center. So someone jumping off would go further than normal. So I dont know what would be used.
Also, any ideas with the bicycle problem? Again, the problem is I can see how animation alone can work to match up exactly with the rotation of wheels/pedals? Hence the IK attachments. Is there somewhere else I should post this complex issue to? BeyondUnreal? UDK forums havent helped much as of yet.
Merry Go Round = Would be some kind of phys_item since it requires player input. Matinee as far as my experience using it is just canned sequences/events.
Bike = Is it a vehicle? Or is it something else (like you're making a bike racing game). If it's a vehicle, then yes, do the canned animations. In your animation tree you have to tell unreal that this is what you play when this happens. Actor gets on the bike, message sent to game is:actor is now riding the bike, bike is now being ridden so play these animations. But if IK is important and not just for matching pedal to legs, then do a test with a simple leg and a simple peddle setup. Create a socket on both the foot and the peddle, then link the two and drive the peddle.
Merry Go Round = Would be some kind of phys_item since it requires player input. Matinee as far as my experience using it is just canned sequences/events.
Bike = Is it a vehicle? Or is it something else (like you're making a bike racing game). If it's a vehicle, then yes, do the canned animations. In your animation tree you have to tell unreal that this is what you play when this happens. Actor gets on the bike, message sent to game is:actor is now riding the bike, bike is now being ridden so play these animations. But if IK is important and not just for matching pedal to legs, then do a test with a simple leg and a simple peddle setup. Create a socket on both the foot and the peddle, then link the two and drive the peddle.
Thanks. Yea. Its a player vehicle. The exact issue is its a fwd tricycle. So the pedal input is directly corresponding to the wheel movement, and the angle of the foot changes when the player turns. So that why I was seeing if I could do a IK setup with a static animation sit pose. Socket the hands to the handle bars, the feet to the pedals. Let the vehicles movements drive the players limbs. Sounds like your saying we can, now we just need to figure out how.
As per the merry go round, that helps as well. We thought we were going to have to rely on matinee which was giving our programmer heartburn.
I want to make a camera that will do a circular rotation around an object (dont want to rotate a turntable or anything like that) want it so i can pimp a model off
I want to make a camera that will do a circular rotation around an object (dont want to rotate a turntable or anything like that) want it so i can pimp a model off
How would i go about making/recording it?
It has to be a matinee so you can go through the command and tell UDK to record that sequence. You then start up the game with the command to record that sequence (you use the Frontend). It will spit out all the frames in the screenshot directory.
So this is what you need to do:
Bring in the model
Add a camera
Open Kismet
Make a new matinee
Link the cam and animate it
Quit and start Frontend
Use the command to kick off that sequence and save the frames
I would do a bunch of screen grabs and tell you the command, but I got a cranky 9 month old and a 6 year old ready for lunch. The command is in this thread a few pages back in a post I made.
Yup I think you should leave that one set to 0. By default TC_Normalmap compression should set all of the Unpack Max to 1 and the Unpack Min [0],[1], and [2] to -1, it leaves the [3] setting at 0.
JordanW explained a bit about this stuff one page back, here and here. Oh it looks like you also need to uncheck sRGB, that's probably what's causing your normal map to be the "off" blue color.
The srgb didnt change the whacky blue color.
Thanks for the help though, and because of the recent discussions of rotating fans... I GOTTA GET IN ON THAT!
Video is 1920x1080. You should have no problems following it. When you see the capture from UDK stutter, it's because I am recording the desktop, UDK is going and I am capturing what it's spitting out. But the output was still at 30FPS.
Video is 1920x1080. You should have no problems following it. When you see the capture from UDK stutter, it's because I am recording the desktop, UDK is going and I am capturing what it's spitting out. But the output was still at 30FPS.
pig, what is your scene like? is the skydome casting emissive light? Is your importance volume encapsulating the skydome? it shouldnt, it should just be playable area.
This is such a noob question. But Im using the ut3 max skeletons to test some things. How do I bake the animation from the biped to the custom skeleton so I can safely delete the biped?
pig, what is your scene like? is the skydome casting emissive light? Is your importance volume encapsulating the skydome? it shouldnt, it should just be playable area.
I figured it out when i read the render-log. I had four instances of a fairly high detailed mesh (3k tris) where i used the emissive for static lighting. When i turned it off i got the speed back.
Its pretty strange though since i know i got it to work once before (and it looked pretty). Im currently on a netbook away from my files so I cant show you the enviro until tomorrow.
"This is such a noob question. But Im using the ut3 max skeletons to test some things. How do I bake the animation from the biped to the custom skeleton so I can safely delete the biped?"
Select every joint in your custom skeleton, go into the trajectories tab, set your range and your samples(if range was 1-20, your samples would be 19) and then hit, I think it's "collapse".
after that, you can select your bip root and delete it.
ABlaine, sorry for the late response, but just make a simple brushed metal diffuse setup in the material editor and add an d specular map to it. Play with the spec power to get the amount of specularity to look right, and then add a cube map to it. Videos on how to do these things:
ABlaine, sorry for the late response, but just make a simple brushed metal diffuse setup in the material editor and add an d specular map to it. Play with the spec power to get the amount of specularity to look right, and then add a cube map to it. Videos on how to do these things:
Thanks 3DRyan, that's a huge help! Exactly what I was looking for. I shouldn't have a problem applying the same concepts to a character's armor, right?
Is it possible to interrupt a matinee going on using key input detection? (kismet)
They are skippable. Look for "Is Skippable" when you select the matinee in Kismet. Make sure you can trigger the "CANCELMATINEE", so check the ini file and see if it's bound to anything.
What kind of skippable are you doing? One that interupts and gives you control while the matinee is going, or one that skips to the end?
One that skips to the end. And the target is the PS3, so I'm not sure how to bind the key/pad to that action
You do that in the ini file. When the mod cooks, it will make a new one... but... not sure. It should be mapped for ps3 to like X or O. And I am not sure you CAN change the ini for ps3 when you cook.
Make sure your mirror seams run vertically in your UV layout and avoid putting the seams on any curved surfaces and you should be fine.
Ok doing first material.. I don't know if this is because im attempting on a skeleton object.
First, it totally trashes mirror. I see the mention of avoid curved surfaces, but even places that are relatively flat still have a seam. Even offset mirrors (meaning not going down the middle of vehicle).
Max.
UDK
Edge
I did use the right swizzle +X -Y? I attempted changing each with no change. I imported the normal using TC-normal with alpha (cause the height map is in).
Secondly, its showing weird shadowing/sparkles in the browser window. Is that normal? I mean in engine will be fine.
Thirdly. I didnt see a basis for heightmaps for parallax for settings, so I just used default ones in xnormal. First, can I put one on a skeleton mesh? If so, from the above, any reason you can see a failure? The material errors out if I try to link the uv from the normal and diffuse to the bump. (The heightmap is in the normalmap alpha. Does it need to be 16bit or something?
With that, again, default xnormal settings since I couldnt find any reference to what settings I would need. This isn't correct correct?
I has moving fanzzz. wee. Gonna try playing around with windfactor and stuff moving around on the ground aswell. I wonder if thats gonna work though, shouldnt everything blow into one direction until its stuck on a wall?
About the normal map seam. The main problem here is that your seam is mostly horizontal when it should be vertical also it really needs to be on a flat surface.
Here's an example of a proper UV mirror for UDK. Disregard the part about light map UVs since your object will be dynamic.
Sorry not too sure about the sparkles or the height map for parallax stuff.
EDIT:
I think that Bump Offset node needs to be plugged into the "UVs" part of the normal map then the output of the normal map texture node goes into the Normal input of the material. You might be able to plug the alpha of the normal map texture node into the Height input of the BumpOffset, or you might have to duplicate the normal map node and then plug the alpha of the normal map texture node into the Height input of the BumpOffset
Would you believe that I thought I was horizontal? Ill be honest (shh, I get those all mixed up. Left, right, x,y,z, horizontal, vertical). Shhh!!
Oh wait! You mean in the uv map itself, the actual seam has to be straight up and down?
Or am I misreading your example? If the edges can only be straight up and down, then I can't do reverse mirroring of say wheels? In other words, when the mirror is offset from the center. . Like the left and right side of a box mirroring the right or reflecting the two sides of a cylinder. If so, that sucks (even more than Torque. Shh!) 2048 here I come!
EDIT: Would this work for reflection of a cylindrical object? Having the middle part horizontal?
About the normal map seam. The main problem here is that your seam is mostly horizontal when it should be vertical also it really needs to be on a flat surface.
Here's an example of a proper UV mirror for UDK. Disregard the part about light map UVs since your object will be dynamic.
Sorry not too sure about the sparkles or the height map for parallax stuff.
EDIT:
I think that Bump Offset node needs to be plugged into the "UVs" part of the normal map then the output of the normal map texture node goes into the Normal input of the material. You might be able to plug the alpha of the normal map texture node into the Height input of the BumpOffset, or you might have to duplicate the normal map node and then plug the alpha of the normal map texture node into the Height input of the BumpOffset
Yea, I looked at that. See its plugged into the red channel versus the alpha above? Made no sense whatsoever. The sample also looks like it using a completely separate texture for the height. Mine is in the normal maps alpha, and when I link it back into the uv of the normal map, like I said, the material errors.
The material example illustrates that the red channel of the heightmap texture is the "height" and that plugs into the height input of bumpoffset which manipulates the UVs of the normal map and diffuse texture of the material to create the parallax effect.
I'm also not sure why you said it makes no sense that the red channel is used as the height rather than alpha? They're all channels for storing information, you can store whatever you want wherever you want. It's a matter of what you have available and what you want to optimize.
Aside from that you should be careful using bump offset on your mesh. It has a lot of UV seams and bumpoffset effect falls apart on UV seams.
The material example illustrates that the red channel of the heightmap texture is the "height" and that plugs into the height input of bumpoffset which manipulates the UVs of the normal map and diffuse texture of the material to create the parallax effect.
I'm also not sure why you said it makes no sense that the red channel is used as the height rather than alpha? They're all channels for storing information, you can store whatever you want wherever you want. It's a matter of what you have available and what you want to optimize.
Aside from that you should be careful using bump offset on your mesh. It has a lot of UV seams and bumpoffset effect falls apart on UV seams.
Thanks for the info. I mentioned that because I only saw that texture being used for the bump with none of the other channels being used in the material. Which I would have thought it would have been more efficient to have it in the alpha of the normal map like I attempted.
Sounds like these types of things arent good for parallax. Ks.. But is there a standard for the heightmap creation? Distance and such?
Having heightmap in alpha of another texture is more efficient for texture lookups, memory wise it's much more efficient to use another smaller texture. What works best for your game depends on where you're limited.
There's no standard for heightmap creation, some use crazybump, some paint em, some generate them using max or xnormal. Most of mine have been a combination of crazybump/painting. It's an underutilized feature by many so there aren't well established standards.
oXYnary I'm a bit confused by your followup mirror question, mostly the image you posted, not sure what you want to mirror there.
You can mirror one side of a box onto the opposite side.
Rotating half of a top of a cylinder's UVs 180° and stacking them won't work IIRC, but truly mirroring it will, like in my example.
Yes, it's best if the mirror seams run straight up and down like in my example.
EDIT:
Based on the image you posted earlier it seems like you are asking if all UV seams need to be vertical/straight up and down?
The answer is no they don't, only mirrored seams need to be made that way, and only when the mirrored UV shells share an edge on the geometry itself. If they are opposite sides of a cube for example then seam direction doesn't matter, but if they are opposite sides of the same face of a cube that was split in half then the seam needs to be vertical to avoid visible normal map seams.
Mirroring UVs (and UV seams in general) can cause quite a few headaches with normal maps in UDK/Unreal but I think one of the most basic rules of UVing which is "hide the seams or place them in logical places where there would be a visible seam on the object anyway" still applies.
1. What would be the smartest way to simulate a fire giving off light. Would I animate the brightness and radius of a point light through matinee?
2. I have some speedtrees in my level and shadows they are giving off are basically the silhouette of the shape of the tree. In other words, the shapes of the leaves and branches can't be seen in the shadow. Is there anyway to fix this?
ABlaine, I've personally never dealt with skeletal human meshes before. I would assume that how you apply materials to them is quite similar to how you do it for static meshes. If I'm wrong, someone please elaborate.
I have a really funky thing going on. There´s a box with the basic udk temp-material on it when i go "ingame". In the editor there´s nothing, nothing at all. Not even an outline.
1. either a dominant point light, toggleable or moveable, with brightness/color animated in matinee
2. is your leaf material translucent? Trans materials cant cast shadows with dominant light shadows, try softmasked.
I spent a long time last night trying to figure it out and couldn't solve the problem.
I'm trying to make a render of my skateboard for my portfolio but the shadows for the wheels end up looking like little nipples on the ground...that doesn't look right.
What's in the scene...a static mesh of the skateboard on a bsp box with a material that I made and for lighting I have one Dominant Directional light and two normal lights.
I double clicked on the bsp surface for the ground and changed to lightmass resolution to first 512...then when I built my lighting there wasn't any shadows...then I changed it to 64 and again no shadows...brought it back to 32 and I get those shadows.
I'm confused as to what is going on.
Any ideas on how to make the shadows look better on the ground?
Replies
you can animate objects through kismet? Learn something new everyday
For your normal map, make sure all four of your Unpack Max settings are set to 1 and Unpack Min [0],[1], and [2] settings are set to -1. If that doesn't work just re-import with one of the Normal map compression schemes.
TEXTUREGROUP_RenderTarget will allow you to use higher resolution textures than TEXTUREGROUP_Skybox. I think LODBias can go to -2 as well (though this setting never seemed to do much for me...)
JordanW explained a bit about this stuff one page back, here and here. Oh it looks like you also need to uncheck sRGB, that's probably what's causing your normal map to be the "off" blue color.
What about this?
Would you use matinee or InterpActor? Because it would seem to me since the speed would depend on the actor pushing, and then on top of that, the physics pushing out from the center. So someone jumping off would go further than normal. So I dont know what would be used.
Also, any ideas with the bicycle problem? Again, the problem is I can see how animation alone can work to match up exactly with the rotation of wheels/pedals? Hence the IK attachments. Is there somewhere else I should post this complex issue to? BeyondUnreal? UDK forums havent helped much as of yet.
Bike = Is it a vehicle? Or is it something else (like you're making a bike racing game). If it's a vehicle, then yes, do the canned animations. In your animation tree you have to tell unreal that this is what you play when this happens. Actor gets on the bike, message sent to game is:actor is now riding the bike, bike is now being ridden so play these animations. But if IK is important and not just for matching pedal to legs, then do a test with a simple leg and a simple peddle setup. Create a socket on both the foot and the peddle, then link the two and drive the peddle.
Thanks. Yea. Its a player vehicle. The exact issue is its a fwd tricycle. So the pedal input is directly corresponding to the wheel movement, and the angle of the foot changes when the player turns. So that why I was seeing if I could do a IK setup with a static animation sit pose. Socket the hands to the handle bars, the feet to the pedals. Let the vehicles movements drive the players limbs. Sounds like your saying we can, now we just need to figure out how.
As per the merry go round, that helps as well. We thought we were going to have to rely on matinee which was giving our programmer heartburn.
How would i go about making/recording it?
So this is what you need to do:
- Bring in the model
- Add a camera
- Open Kismet
- Make a new matinee
- Link the cam and animate it
- Quit and start Frontend
- Use the command to kick off that sequence and save the frames
I would do a bunch of screen grabs and tell you the command, but I got a cranky 9 month old and a 6 year old ready for lunch. The command is in this thread a few pages back in a post I made.The srgb didnt change the whacky blue color.
Thanks for the help though, and because of the recent discussions of rotating fans... I GOTTA GET IN ON THAT!
Time to add fans.
Video of the process ::592MB Camstudio Codec::
Video of the output ::30MB mpeg::
Sample BMP image ::2.1MB::
The difference is quite noticeable. 4min on high (maybe less) to finish before. Now it doesnt even move 1% after 20min on the same settings... :S
thank you so much lamont your an abolute champ
edit: the video is messed up - it is really weird - i'm using vlc. what program do i need or is there a problem with the file?
The larger one requires the Camstudio codec.
I figured it out when i read the render-log. I had four instances of a fairly high detailed mesh (3k tris) where i used the emissive for static lighting. When i turned it off i got the speed back.
Its pretty strange though since i know i got it to work once before (and it looked pretty). Im currently on a netbook away from my files so I cant show you the enviro until tomorrow.
Select every joint in your custom skeleton, go into the trajectories tab, set your range and your samples(if range was 1-20, your samples would be 19) and then hit, I think it's "collapse".
after that, you can select your bip root and delete it.
cubemap tut: [ame]
beginner vids for unreal material editor, among many other topics: http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/VideoTutorials.html
Hope this helps!
Is it possible to interrupt a matinee going on using key input detection? (kismet)
What kind of skippable are you doing? One that interupts and gives you control while the matinee is going, or one that skips to the end?
Ok doing first material.. I don't know if this is because im attempting on a skeleton object.
First, it totally trashes mirror. I see the mention of avoid curved surfaces, but even places that are relatively flat still have a seam. Even offset mirrors (meaning not going down the middle of vehicle).
Max.
UDK
Edge
I did use the right swizzle +X -Y? I attempted changing each with no change. I imported the normal using TC-normal with alpha (cause the height map is in).
Secondly, its showing weird shadowing/sparkles in the browser window. Is that normal? I mean in engine will be fine.
Thirdly. I didnt see a basis for heightmaps for parallax for settings, so I just used default ones in xnormal. First, can I put one on a skeleton mesh? If so, from the above, any reason you can see a failure? The material errors out if I try to link the uv from the normal and diffuse to the bump. (The heightmap is in the normalmap alpha. Does it need to be 16bit or something?
With that, again, default xnormal settings since I couldnt find any reference to what settings I would need. This isn't correct correct?
[ame]
About the normal map seam. The main problem here is that your seam is mostly horizontal when it should be vertical also it really needs to be on a flat surface.
Here's an example of a proper UV mirror for UDK. Disregard the part about light map UVs since your object will be dynamic.
Sorry not too sure about the sparkles or the height map for parallax stuff.
EDIT:
I think that Bump Offset node needs to be plugged into the "UVs" part of the normal map then the output of the normal map texture node goes into the Normal input of the material. You might be able to plug the alpha of the normal map texture node into the Height input of the BumpOffset, or you might have to duplicate the normal map node and then plug the alpha of the normal map texture node into the Height input of the BumpOffset
EDIT2:
My words are probably too confusing, lol
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MaterialsTutorial.html
Oh wait! You mean in the uv map itself, the actual seam has to be straight up and down?
Or am I misreading your example? If the edges can only be straight up and down, then I can't do reverse mirroring of say wheels? In other words, when the mirror is offset from the center. . Like the left and right side of a box mirroring the right or reflecting the two sides of a cylinder. If so, that sucks (even more than Torque. Shh!) 2048 here I come!
EDIT: Would this work for reflection of a cylindrical object? Having the middle part horizontal?
Or do all edges involved have to be horizontal?
Yea, I looked at that. See its plugged into the red channel versus the alpha above? Made no sense whatsoever. The sample also looks like it using a completely separate texture for the height. Mine is in the normal maps alpha, and when I link it back into the uv of the normal map, like I said, the material errors.
What about distance and such for xnormal?
I'm also not sure why you said it makes no sense that the red channel is used as the height rather than alpha? They're all channels for storing information, you can store whatever you want wherever you want. It's a matter of what you have available and what you want to optimize.
Aside from that you should be careful using bump offset on your mesh. It has a lot of UV seams and bumpoffset effect falls apart on UV seams.
Thanks for the info. I mentioned that because I only saw that texture being used for the bump with none of the other channels being used in the material. Which I would have thought it would have been more efficient to have it in the alpha of the normal map like I attempted.
Sounds like these types of things arent good for parallax. Ks.. But is there a standard for the heightmap creation? Distance and such?
There's no standard for heightmap creation, some use crazybump, some paint em, some generate them using max or xnormal. Most of mine have been a combination of crazybump/painting. It's an underutilized feature by many so there aren't well established standards.
You can mirror one side of a box onto the opposite side.
Rotating half of a top of a cylinder's UVs 180° and stacking them won't work IIRC, but truly mirroring it will, like in my example.
Yes, it's best if the mirror seams run straight up and down like in my example.
EDIT:
Based on the image you posted earlier it seems like you are asking if all UV seams need to be vertical/straight up and down?
The answer is no they don't, only mirrored seams need to be made that way, and only when the mirrored UV shells share an edge on the geometry itself. If they are opposite sides of a cube for example then seam direction doesn't matter, but if they are opposite sides of the same face of a cube that was split in half then the seam needs to be vertical to avoid visible normal map seams.
Mirroring UVs (and UV seams in general) can cause quite a few headaches with normal maps in UDK/Unreal but I think one of the most basic rules of UVing which is "hide the seams or place them in logical places where there would be a visible seam on the object anyway" still applies.
1. What would be the smartest way to simulate a fire giving off light. Would I animate the brightness and radius of a point light through matinee?
2. I have some speedtrees in my level and shadows they are giving off are basically the silhouette of the shape of the tree. In other words, the shapes of the leaves and branches can't be seen in the shadow. Is there anyway to fix this?
1. either a dominant point light, toggleable or moveable, with brightness/color animated in matinee
2. is your leaf material translucent? Trans materials cant cast shadows with dominant light shadows, try softmasked.
I spent a long time last night trying to figure it out and couldn't solve the problem.
I'm trying to make a render of my skateboard for my portfolio but the shadows for the wheels end up looking like little nipples on the ground...that doesn't look right.
What's in the scene...a static mesh of the skateboard on a bsp box with a material that I made and for lighting I have one Dominant Directional light and two normal lights.
I double clicked on the bsp surface for the ground and changed to lightmass resolution to first 512...then when I built my lighting there wasn't any shadows...then I changed it to 64 and again no shadows...brought it back to 32 and I get those shadows.
I'm confused as to what is going on.
Any ideas on how to make the shadows look better on the ground?