Hi guys, I have no idea on how UDK works and interested in knowing more about it. Recently I downloaded the video tutorials from the UDK website page. After a long wait (internet is a bit slow in here) only I know that 1 of the file was corrupted, the file that I mention is:
Under the 3D Buzz Video Tutorial - Using UDK/ User Interface section.
So did any of you guys have downloaded that video before? if yes so please can you upload it just that video so that I can easily download it with not-so-big file size. Or is there any place I can download it separately from the rest of the video in the set?
Is there any reason in particular as to why lightmass tends to totally destroy normal maps? When I use regular lighting it's fine, but once lightmass is checked, all my normal maps become super weak. I've tried adding a constant variable linked to a multiply node to boost the normal map values, but to no avail. The only way to get it working is to boost the normal map's intensity with crazybump.
hey I'm really stuck with this.
I have an isometric game, the camera is zoomed out so among other things dynamic shadows switch to low quality, and AO get turned off.
Is there any way to turn this silly lighting LOD off ? it's pretty useless to use UDK for my project if I can't see any decent lighting and effect ...
Change your light type? Move your assets to another lighting group?
It doesn't matter what I do, because of the FOV the game thinks the camera is very far away ... it switches to lowest quality dynamic shadows and occlusion regardless of what lights or settings I use ...
I'm really surprised there's no way to do this, there has to be a way to force occlusion always on for example.
Occlusion is a PPE, so that may be something to do with why the quality is so low on things further away from the camera. Will take a look at the PPE chain and see if there is anything that can be done.
Thanks Lamont ! I didn't see the panel.
I was able to turn off fading for AO, but unfortunately the quality is very bad (there's bizarre shadows everywhere)
I think the main issue is that my FOV is low, and my camera is set way back, this screws the scene depth up which is crucial for AO and effects calculations.
I'm new to the UDK, so forgive me if this seems like a stupid question.
Is there a box selection feature that lets you select multiple objects at the same time in one of the viewports? As in, you click and drag and it makes a selection box and everything inside the box is selected?
Hold down Ctrl Alt and then left mouse drag to select objects. Hold down Ctrl Alt and right mouse drag to deselect objects. You can only do this in the Top, Side, or Front viewports.
Thanks Lamont ! I didn't see the panel.
I was able to turn off fading for AO, but unfortunately the quality is very bad (there's bizarre shadows everywhere)
I think the main issue is that my FOV is low, and my camera is set way back, this screws the scene depth up which is crucial for AO and effects calculations.
Hold down Ctrl Alt and then left mouse drag to select objects. Hold down Ctrl Alt and right mouse drag to deselect objects. You can only do this in the Top, Side, or Front viewports.
Ah, I see. I was holding down Ctrl or Alt separately. Thanks!
Thanks Lamont ! I didn't see the panel.
I was able to turn off fading for AO, but unfortunately the quality is very bad (there's bizarre shadows everywhere)
I think the main issue is that my FOV is low, and my camera is set way back, this screws the scene depth up which is crucial for AO and effects calculations.
Yep, this is the problem. What you would want is to move the near clipping plane away from the camera and closer to the scene. Unfortunately you can't control it in the UDK.
I had the opposite problem in my game as I wanted to move it slightly close to the camera. Since I only wanted to move it a short distance I simply scaled everything up 2 times. Works perfectly fine in my game but not sure if it would work in this case. scaling everything way down might do nothing if the far end clipping plane is not adjusted so you would still have the same problem and just introduce scaling problems instead.
I think I read somewhere (might have tested it to) that there is a console command to change the clipping plane. Maybe there is a way to trigger that from code as well every time you start a level.
I've got a question about normal maps...
remember reading somewhere that normal maps baked in xnormal for UDk have some kind of special setting... but I can't remember it...
Hey Jordan, what do you mean by swizzle? What's that word mean in your context? Sorry I'm unfamiliar.
I'm use to using normal maps the opposite way unreal wants the green channel. They look fine in modo but I always have to flip the green channel for unreal. Anyway to flip it in unreal? Maybe its cheaper just doing it in Photoshop. Any suggestions anyone?
hey, i've got this corrugated ceiling started in my scene. so far, i'm making the scene purely for indoor shots, so I haven't been making backsided assets which helps me keep the polycount low. because of this, the sunlight is shining right through. is there a simple way in UDK to make a type of static mesh that will cast shadows 2 sided for sake of lightmass, but only render single sided in-game?
i also plan on alpha'ing out bits so I can get some bits of sky peeking through. (thats what the black blobs outlined in red poorly represent) if there's a cool way to get lightmass working well with all of this, that'd be real nice. : ) thanks
Sorry Chai, I have not found anything that would help yet. If you could make a dummy scene for me to test with that's set up the same way, I might be able to do more.
Parkar - thanks I think it's the issue as well, UE3 has no way to adjust near/far clips unfortunately
Lamont - hey you've done way more than enough, thanks a lot !
I've asked a few experts with UDK and they all came back saying it's an issue with scene depth getting messed up, and UDK limitation of not being able to adjust it.
I'm having trouble painting vertex colors on FBX meshes I import from 3dsmax. The models are very simple, ones just a sphere.
I can paint fine on all the models that come with UDK but anytime I try to use my imported meshes no paint circle appears when I select and hover over the mesh. If I try to click CTRL and paint something nothing happens
Is there something special I need to do to get this to work?
EDIT/UPDATE: I tried useing an ASE instead ( was unware that that was, and has been, built into max) , and it worked. So apparently there is some sort of problem vertex painting on fbx meshes.
You have to setup the material of that object with 2 textures lerped together with a color channel from a vertex color node plugged into the alpha in order for mesh paint to work correctly.
I use modo and i export my mesh with 2 uv maps. uv1 and uv2. i am using uv2 for light map baking, its a empty uv map when created.
do i need to additionally unwrap my mesh for the light map uv channel as well? i was just hoping unreal had an automatic unwrapping or something for the light map channel? i'm asking because i dont think modo has an automatic unwrapping (like in maya) any info would be really appreciated.
I use modo and i export my mesh with 2 uv maps. uv1 and uv2. i am using uv2 for light map baking, its a empty uv map when created.
do i need to additionally unwrap my mesh for the light map uv channel as well? i was just hoping unreal had an automatic unwrapping or something for the light map channel? i'm asking because i dont think modo has an automatic unwrapping (like in maya) any info would be really appreciated.
you can use unwrap on atlas (or atlas 2), but it definitely waste a lot of space.
to be honest I just use the same diffuse unwrap, and separate the duplicated areas, i then use pack on stretch so it's all evened out.
Got an issue here where I've got this strange AO like effect around objects in my scene, and I've no way of curing it. The effect seems to ghost a bit when moving the camera in the scene as well.
I have previously edited some post process effects through the UTPostProcess in FX_HitEffects, and more recently I've updated UDK to the latest version hoping it would cure the issue. But no luck.
I keep getting confused about how to go about editing any PostProcess Effects, and whether I should just leave the UTPostProcess in FX_HitEffects completely alone and instead just go through the View > World Properties and edit anything there.
I'm also having some real issues lighting this scene the past few weeks, and I'm still unable to get my head around how to get things just 'looking right'.
My big question here is in reference to using LightMass in interior/enclosed scenes. Lighting exteriors seems to be fairly easy with using DominantDirectionalLight's. But when it comes to interiors and how LightMass works I'm hearing conflicting ideas about how to light a scene.
Should I only just be placing lights that would represent actual physical lights in the scene (ie, desk lamps, ceiling lights), and let LightMass deal with the bounce light and making sure the rest is visible, or am I still required to place other point lights to achieve the look even if these lights aren't even physical lights in the scene.
Any help with these questions would be greatly appreciated. As I'm really getting to the point of just being totally disheartened with this piece of work.
Should I only just be placing lights that would represent actual physical lights in the scene (ie, desk lamps, ceiling lights), and let LightMass deal with the bounce light and making sure the rest is visible, or am I still required to place other point lights to achieve the look even if these lights aren't even physical lights in the scene.
Any help with these questions would be greatly appreciated. As I'm really getting to the point of just being totally disheartened with this piece of work.
Well start off with putting the lights where they logically make sense then let lightmass deal with bounce lighting but go in there and add lights where its too dark. I think of it almost as painting with light and you've probably heard that a lot. Suggest checking out Gnomon's lighting dvd as there's tonnes of info to take about lightmass.
I seem to have broken the UDK translation widgets, they don't actually move anything any more. I know I have done this in the past, but can't remember how to fix it! I'm going to slap myself when I find the answer!
To the left of your move, rotate and scale widgets, make sure you don't have the mouse pointer / selection icon enabled. This allows you to select lots of objects without accidentally moving / rotating / scaling them.
Alright, I've got some problems with Unreal Ed 3 (unreal engine 2.5).
1) I've got some specular maps that want to use. The issue is that they always come out too bright. As a matter of fact, the textures themselves seem to be brighter in the editor.
2) I can't get my opacity maps to work correctly. It's not inverted, it's just not working at all. I'm just doing the standard white is opaque/black is transparent. Is it something weird? My model winds up showing up as flipped faces on parts of it (or at least that's how it seems).
3) Can I pull animations off of models that are already in the editor and use them on my own? Would I have to change the naming scheme of my bones? It's a basic, default Max skeleton because I don't have time to set up bones and ik myself.
Well start off with putting the lights where they logically make sense then let lightmass deal with bounce lighting but go in there and add lights where its too dark. I think of it almost as painting with light and you've probably heard that a lot. Suggest checking out Gnomon's lighting dvd as there's tonnes of info to take about lightmass.
Thanks for the explanation. I think my fundamental issue here is my understanding of lighting needs improving. I've taken your advice and placed lights where they would physically be and then I've gone in and added to that with point lights to sort the rest.
I did purchase the Eat 3D UDK Lighting DVD when it came out, and I've gone back through it again and I've corrected the ghosting AO issue and learnt a bit more about how the post-processing works. My only issue with the DVD is that like here I'm trying to improve my knowledge of how to light an interior scene in UDK using LightMass, and it doesn't do a quick run-through how to effectively do that...which before purchasing I was hopeful it would feature that. I guess I need to be a bit more unruly with the lighting and learn what works and what doesn't.
Here's a completely separate question though if anyone can answer. Is it possible to exclude objects from a PointLight in a scene, so they only light what you want it to light when baking. For example I'm lighting an object that is placed on the floor, but I can't exclude the floor surface.
In the UDK lighting DVD is goes through an option to do this, but in the latest build this box is not present in the PointLight's properties.
How do you batch export static meshes from Max (2010) to UDK? And better yet are there any plugins that allow you to create packages inside of Max to be exported to the editor?
I do know about Epic's ActorX plgin, but to my understanding that only deals with exporting rigs and animations from Max.
How do you batch export static meshes from Max (2010) to UDK? And better yet are there any plugins that allow you to create packages inside of Max to be exported to the editor?
I do know about Epic's ActorX plgin, but to my understanding that only deals with exporting rigs and animations from Max.
no udk package exporter for max as far as i know
yea ActorX only exports rigs and animations (skeletal meshes)
and i guess batch exporting static meshes from Max to the UDK would mean batch exporting .ASE files from max itself. i don't know if or how that is possible.
maybe using a custom script or something?
Batch export is possible, mentioned on UDN. Only for 3DS Max. Maya folks have to do it the hard way. But FBX is supported, so just batch export FBX out of Maya.
In the UDK lighting DVD is goes through an option to do this, but in the latest build this box is not present in the PointLight's properties.
Still needing an answer to this as to how you set an Inclusion Volume for a light.
I'm following the documentation on Light Volumes but the option present here as 'InclusionVolumes' with the highlighted text in blue is not present.
In my scene I've added a LightVolume hoping the option would then appear for any lights, but there seems to be no way of excluding/including certain objects for a light.
Am I just doing something wrong all together, or has this option been replaced in the latest UDK builds?
AFAIK light inclusion volumes aren't supported. Static lighting ignores channels and any sort of volume or inclusion settings since it bounces around now. Dynamic moveable lights will still use channels.
I looked around but couldn't find any mention of this, and didn't want to start a new thread because it seems like something that is probably solved fairly simply.
That said, every time I try to place a skybox all of my lighting goes to pure black, anyone ever had this happen? I watched several tutorials and they always just drag and drop the skybox and it works.
I'm using one dominant directional light and terrain only at the moment in the scene as well as a lightmass importance volume.
Replies
http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?p=27380725
"01_-_User_Interface__03_MainToolbar__002_TranformationWidgetButtons.mp4"
Under the 3D Buzz Video Tutorial - Using UDK/ User Interface section.
So did any of you guys have downloaded that video before? if yes so please can you upload it just that video so that I can easily download it with not-so-big file size. Or is there any place I can download it separately from the rest of the video in the set?
Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks.
_Revel
[ame]
Cool!..how come I forgot about YouTube?..lol
Thanks man.
_Revel
Its less apparent because there's light bouncing around rather than harsh 1 direction lighting
I have an isometric game, the camera is zoomed out so among other things dynamic shadows switch to low quality, and AO get turned off.
Is there any way to turn this silly lighting LOD off ? it's pretty useless to use UDK for my project if I can't see any decent lighting and effect ...
It doesn't matter what I do, because of the FOV the game thinks the camera is very far away ... it switches to lowest quality dynamic shadows and occlusion regardless of what lights or settings I use ...
I'm really surprised there's no way to do this, there has to be a way to force occlusion always on for example.
And if that doesn't work, then we can take a look at the Material itself, just realize that this affects everything in UDK.
I was able to turn off fading for AO, but unfortunately the quality is very bad (there's bizarre shadows everywhere)
I think the main issue is that my FOV is low, and my camera is set way back, this screws the scene depth up which is crucial for AO and effects calculations.
Is there a box selection feature that lets you select multiple objects at the same time in one of the viewports? As in, you click and drag and it makes a selection box and everything inside the box is selected?
Hold down Ctrl Alt and then left mouse drag to select objects. Hold down Ctrl Alt and right mouse drag to deselect objects. You can only do this in the Top, Side, or Front viewports.
Ah, I see. I was holding down Ctrl or Alt separately. Thanks!
Yep, this is the problem. What you would want is to move the near clipping plane away from the camera and closer to the scene. Unfortunately you can't control it in the UDK.
I had the opposite problem in my game as I wanted to move it slightly close to the camera. Since I only wanted to move it a short distance I simply scaled everything up 2 times. Works perfectly fine in my game but not sure if it would work in this case. scaling everything way down might do nothing if the far end clipping plane is not adjusted so you would still have the same problem and just introduce scaling problems instead.
I think I read somewhere (might have tested it to) that there is a console command to change the clipping plane. Maybe there is a way to trigger that from code as well every time you start a level.
remember reading somewhere that normal maps baked in xnormal for UDk have some kind of special setting... but I can't remember it...
I'm use to using normal maps the opposite way unreal wants the green channel. They look fine in modo but I always have to flip the green channel for unreal. Anyway to flip it in unreal? Maybe its cheaper just doing it in Photoshop. Any suggestions anyone?
hey, i've got this corrugated ceiling started in my scene. so far, i'm making the scene purely for indoor shots, so I haven't been making backsided assets which helps me keep the polycount low. because of this, the sunlight is shining right through. is there a simple way in UDK to make a type of static mesh that will cast shadows 2 sided for sake of lightmass, but only render single sided in-game?
i also plan on alpha'ing out bits so I can get some bits of sky peeking through. (thats what the black blobs outlined in red poorly represent) if there's a cool way to get lightmass working well with all of this, that'd be real nice. : ) thanks
Lamont - hey you've done way more than enough, thanks a lot !
I've asked a few experts with UDK and they all came back saying it's an issue with scene depth getting messed up, and UDK limitation of not being able to adjust it.
http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=734876
A new nice bloom and better performances (I get 15 more fps inside the editor on the gdc map) ! And more stuffs of course...
I can paint fine on all the models that come with UDK but anytime I try to use my imported meshes no paint circle appears when I select and hover over the mesh. If I try to click CTRL and paint something nothing happens
Is there something special I need to do to get this to work?
EDIT/UPDATE: I tried useing an ASE instead ( was unware that that was, and has been, built into max) , and it worked. So apparently there is some sort of problem vertex painting on fbx meshes.
The issue was that I can't paint vertex colors on models imported as FBX files.
I use modo and i export my mesh with 2 uv maps. uv1 and uv2. i am using uv2 for light map baking, its a empty uv map when created.
do i need to additionally unwrap my mesh for the light map uv channel as well? i was just hoping unreal had an automatic unwrapping or something for the light map channel? i'm asking because i dont think modo has an automatic unwrapping (like in maya) any info would be really appreciated.
I don't think you can export vertex colours with .FBX
Just using .ASE should solve your problem.
you can use unwrap on atlas (or atlas 2), but it definitely waste a lot of space.
to be honest I just use the same diffuse unwrap, and separate the duplicated areas, i then use pack on stretch so it's all evened out.
I have previously edited some post process effects through the UTPostProcess in FX_HitEffects, and more recently I've updated UDK to the latest version hoping it would cure the issue. But no luck.
I keep getting confused about how to go about editing any PostProcess Effects, and whether I should just leave the UTPostProcess in FX_HitEffects completely alone and instead just go through the View > World Properties and edit anything there.
I'm also having some real issues lighting this scene the past few weeks, and I'm still unable to get my head around how to get things just 'looking right'.
My big question here is in reference to using LightMass in interior/enclosed scenes. Lighting exteriors seems to be fairly easy with using DominantDirectionalLight's. But when it comes to interiors and how LightMass works I'm hearing conflicting ideas about how to light a scene.
Should I only just be placing lights that would represent actual physical lights in the scene (ie, desk lamps, ceiling lights), and let LightMass deal with the bounce light and making sure the rest is visible, or am I still required to place other point lights to achieve the look even if these lights aren't even physical lights in the scene.
Any help with these questions would be greatly appreciated. As I'm really getting to the point of just being totally disheartened with this piece of work.
Well start off with putting the lights where they logically make sense then let lightmass deal with bounce lighting but go in there and add lights where its too dark. I think of it almost as painting with light and you've probably heard that a lot. Suggest checking out Gnomon's lighting dvd as there's tonnes of info to take about lightmass.
I seem to have broken the UDK translation widgets, they don't actually move anything any more. I know I have done this in the past, but can't remember how to fix it! I'm going to slap myself when I find the answer!
Any ideas?
1) I've got some specular maps that want to use. The issue is that they always come out too bright. As a matter of fact, the textures themselves seem to be brighter in the editor.
2) I can't get my opacity maps to work correctly. It's not inverted, it's just not working at all. I'm just doing the standard white is opaque/black is transparent. Is it something weird? My model winds up showing up as flipped faces on parts of it (or at least that's how it seems).
3) Can I pull animations off of models that are already in the editor and use them on my own? Would I have to change the naming scheme of my bones? It's a basic, default Max skeleton because I don't have time to set up bones and ik myself.
I did purchase the Eat 3D UDK Lighting DVD when it came out, and I've gone back through it again and I've corrected the ghosting AO issue and learnt a bit more about how the post-processing works. My only issue with the DVD is that like here I'm trying to improve my knowledge of how to light an interior scene in UDK using LightMass, and it doesn't do a quick run-through how to effectively do that...which before purchasing I was hopeful it would feature that. I guess I need to be a bit more unruly with the lighting and learn what works and what doesn't.
Here's a completely separate question though if anyone can answer. Is it possible to exclude objects from a PointLight in a scene, so they only light what you want it to light when baking. For example I'm lighting an object that is placed on the floor, but I can't exclude the floor surface.
In the UDK lighting DVD is goes through an option to do this, but in the latest build this box is not present in the PointLight's properties.
How do you batch export static meshes from Max (2010) to UDK? And better yet are there any plugins that allow you to create packages inside of Max to be exported to the editor?
I do know about Epic's ActorX plgin, but to my understanding that only deals with exporting rigs and animations from Max.
no udk package exporter for max as far as i know
yea ActorX only exports rigs and animations (skeletal meshes)
and i guess batch exporting static meshes from Max to the UDK would mean batch exporting .ASE files from max itself. i don't know if or how that is possible.
maybe using a custom script or something?
http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorXMaxTutorial.html#Batch exporting using _MaxScript
?
That example only appears to be for animated meshes, not static.
EDIT: Corrected link
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/keens-batch-exporter
Eh, its cool then. Thanks though dude.
I'm following the documentation on Light Volumes but the option present here as 'InclusionVolumes' with the highlighted text in blue is not present.
In my scene I've added a LightVolume hoping the option would then appear for any lights, but there seems to be no way of excluding/including certain objects for a light.
Am I just doing something wrong all together, or has this option been replaced in the latest UDK builds?
That said, every time I try to place a skybox all of my lighting goes to pure black, anyone ever had this happen? I watched several tutorials and they always just drag and drop the skybox and it works.
I'm using one dominant directional light and terrain only at the moment in the scene as well as a lightmass importance volume.
Thanks for any help