I've messed around with a bunch of the other render to texture and reflection actors but am not happy with the results. I'm looking for something similar to the results in the bottom image. When I render the bottom image out however, it won't let me apply it to a material with a reflection node.
Is there a way to get the same effect as the bottom image without using real time reflections?
...
Real-time reflections actually don't use the reflect node-- they use two channels of the Screen Position node, like this:
Possible point of trouble: this works fine on the July build, but doesn't seem to work at all on the August build. Not sure if it got broken, or if there's a problem with my video drivers, or what. Never seen anyone else mention it, so it's probably a personal problem.
I have been building this mini environment to learn UDK and I did about half my stuff with object space normal maps (since there isn't an ideal tangent space workflow from max right now). I'm at the stage of the project where I am trying to bring it all out of max into UDK and I can't figure out how to get object space maps working.
If object space normal maps aren't supported in UDK its going to be a huge pain in the ass to redo my UVs and add supporting geometry so that the tangent space can bake cleanly.
I attached an image of what I'm working on from the max viewport. Things like those columns and supporting arches are in object space for the better smoothing quality
Thanks for the help. I was able to get real time reflections up and running fairly easily.
But it seems to be pretty resource dependent. Is there anyway to get the same alignment with the reflections without using real time reflections? Anytime I use a cubemap its impossible to line it up so its believable.
If I decide not to use real time reflections I'm assuming my best bet would be to use a generic blurry texture for the reflections, so there is no issue of alignment with the level?
Problem is to have it always be aligned like you want it, it needs to be realtime.
One thing that might work is making a low detailed version that is exactly the same as the real room. Then use render to texture to render the reflection as if it is reflecting that other room. Think of it as a portal to a low res version of your room (I believe there are tutorials on doing a plain portal around on the net).
I haven't thought out all the details but I think it might work and give you some better performance compared to reflecting the real thing.
A cheaper version would be to even just place the lores copy mirrored under the floor and make the floor material slightly transparent. This assumes you can actually fit it under your floor of course.
Edit: Obviously both of these solutions means you will not be able to see dynamic objects reflecting but it sounds like that is a compromise you already was prepared to do.
Edit2: AlecMoody, I don't think it does support object space normal maps. Using explicit normals with the fbx format does solve the biggest issues with the normal mapps in UDK though.
Guess this is for Jordon or if someone has messed around with it let me know but what are Landscapes? I've tried messing with them but nothing happens. I tried converting terrain to landscape but UDK just crashes
Problem is to have it always be aligned like you want it, it needs to be realtime.
One thing that might work is making a low detailed version that is exactly the same as the real room. Then use render to texture to render the reflection as if it is reflecting that other room. Think of it as a portal to a low res version of your room (I believe there are tutorials on doing a plain portal around on the net).
I haven't thought out all the details but I think it might work and give you some better performance compared to reflecting the real thing.
A cheaper version would be to even just place the lores copy mirrored under the floor and make the floor material slightly transparent. This assumes you can actually fit it under your floor of course.
Edit: Obviously both of these solutions means you will not be able to see dynamic objects reflecting but it sounds like that is a compromise you already was prepared to do.
Edit2: AlecMoody, I don't think it does support object space normal maps. Using explicit normals with the fbx format does solve the biggest issues with the normal mapps in UDK though.
Hey thanks for all the info. The performance hit is noticeable with real time reflections but my scene is pretty simple so it might be ok. I'll have to hook up some fraps and find out what my exact fps are.
I'll still gonna be messing around with reflections and shaders today so I'll see how things go. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a way to make cubemaps align better. It wouldn't be such an issue if it was playable with people running around and distracted.. But since I'm just having a couple still shots looking directly at it it doesn't work so well.
I'll see what I can come up with with the mirroring for the bottom floor and and portal concept for the top floor also.
Is it possible to have the fog not effect the skydomes?
It's been a while since you asked this, but in case you haven't found the answer since then... as far as I am aware the only way to have the sky not get fogged is using the following settings on the sky's material:
Hello, i'm getting a weird problem on one of my props when i select "play from here." In the viewport, the mesh looks absolutely fine, but when i play i get a weird black seem. Here are the screenshots.
Is it possible to export particle effects out of the UDK in any form? I made an explosion and would love either some sprites of the entire thing or something.
I'm still new here, so if I'm doing anything wrong, lemme know.
Anyways, I'm having an issue where my decals aren't accepting shadows. It's as if they are ignoring shadow information. Aside from making sure that they don't appear on terrain, the other settings are at default. I'm not sure what's going on there.
Here's a fun question for an idea I have. I want to do a simple enemy that pulls out his torso and throws it at the player. Then he'll pull his new torso out of the earth. Any ideas on the best way to go about this?
Here's a fun question for an idea I have. I want to do a simple enemy that pulls out his torso and throws it at the player. Then he'll pull his new torso out of the earth. Any ideas on the best way to go about this?
Just woke up but this comes to mind:
Torso is an accessory attached via sockets.
When torso is getting thrown, socket version goes away, projectile/weapon version comes in.
The reaching into the earth bit is animated in your app of choice and just animate it being pulled up, final resting place is on socket.
You will need to animate the transitions before and after becoming an attachment.
Okay, so I just updated to the Sept. build, and it seems that I keep getting weird black outlines around the gun model and my window (it's broken glass, just flat planes with opacity masks). What gives?
And I need some nice pointers/tutorials on lighting since I don't know jack about it Just managed to put some point lights in there and it's definitely not the desired effect. I tried putting in spot lights but they were showing of really weak no matter how much I cranked it up. Any ideas?
And guys. No need for advice about textures/materials at this point.
They are all in a very early stage(no spec, haven't been color-correcting according to original references etc etc.)
So please. Only advice on how to do some awesome lighting
EDIT: And also. If anyone would care to help me out finding a good solution for the metal-material on the elevator doors, I would also be very glad The chrome-like material i have built is just too much. I just need some subtle reflections.
It looks like your lighting is currently per-vertex, so to start with switch your assets to use lightmaps. Give them unique, non-overlapping UVs on a second UV channel and set each asset to use a Light Map Resolution other than zero. 64 is a good starting point.
Thanks Zack, I started trying that yesterday, But it took a buttload of time to render. I think I overdid it on the light map resolution though. Will try again.
Do you fix the UVs straight in UDK or in another 3d app?
You'll get the best results by setting them up yourself but it can be time consuming. The auto UVs in UDK are good for previewing but will probably create a lot more seams or stretching than you'd get from setting them up yourself. If baking is taking too long and you want to do a lot of trial and error, drop the quality setting to Preview or Medium. Be sure to make a lightmass importance volume to speed it up too.
You'll get the best results by setting them up yourself but it can be time consuming. The auto UVs in UDK are good for previewing but will probably create a lot more seams or stretching than you'd get from setting them up yourself. If baking is taking too long and you want to do a lot of trial and error, drop the quality setting to Preview or Medium. Be sure to make a lightmass importance volume to speed it up too.
So I've got a problem whit this whole UV's for the lightmaps...
More of a lazy-related problem.
Thing is that I put all the pieces of the corridor together already in Maya and just exported the whole thing. Fair enough I thought, since it was faster for me to do it that way, and I'm new to workflow in UDK.
Sooo If I were to fix that 2nd UV channel I would need to go back to Maya and split everything up and put all the objects into the scene piece by piece in UDK. Because otherwise all the UV's will be overlapping.
Is there a work-around? ) Otherwise I'll just have to bite the bullet on this one.
yeah you should get a work flow down before sending out of maya.
have 2 uv channels,
1-uvs for your textured mesh
2-uvs lightmaps
in maya you can just copy uvs to your second uv channel and then...pack or something like that. i use modo so its sketchy from memory what to do in maya.
you shouldn't have to break up your mesh, udk does a realy good job of light baking. maybe if your object its just enormous, then you'd break it up for light map quality.
yeah you should get a work flow down before sending out of maya.
have 2 uv channels,
1-uvs for your textured mesh
2-uvs lightmaps
in maya you can just copy uvs to your second uv channel and then...pack or something like that. i use modo so its sketchy from memory what to do in maya.
you shouldn't have to break up your mesh, udk does a realy good job of light baking. maybe if your object its just enormous, then you'd break it up for light map quality.
Best thing for light map Uv, is to auto-project then use the layout tool with the correct map size (to give the correct pixel buffer size) then normalize. Nine times out of 10 it turns out pretty good without any sort of fiddling around with. (this is maya btw)
Best thing for light map Uv, is to auto-project then use the layout tool with the correct map size (to give the correct pixel buffer size) then normalize. Nine times out of 10 it turns out pretty good without any sort of fiddling around with. (this is maya btw)
Both u guys... Thank you! Will try out both your techniques!
Sometimes when I place a new static mesh in my scene, it doesnt show up when I play the level. Even after rebuilding and such. If I save everything and restart UDK it shows up.
I have checked the properties of the objekt and it's not hidden.
Sometimes when I place a new static mesh in my scene, it doesnt show up when I play the level. Even after rebuilding and such. If I save everything and restart UDK it shows up.
I have checked the properties of the objekt and it's not hidden.
If your using external packages, make sure to save your package. I've experienced this and scratched my head for quite a while :P
I made a scene in UDK, and im texturing it at the minute. For the walls and floor I just used bsp, but I made the ceiling in Max as it has a little more detail. How do I import the ceiling into UDK so it acts like bsp and not a mesh. I want to be able to select its surface properties and tile a texture along it, but at the minute it does not give you the option. It is treated like a mesh instead.
Sorry if this has been mentioned before, did some searching and couldnt an answer.
I've one week to learn and make a basic outdoor island map for a school project. All is going well and UDK is great except one inconvenience! I'm using speedtree to make some cool little trees, but my main problem is now that I need to populate my island with them. Is there an easier way than click and dragging them one by one out of the content browser (Maybe a sort of brush-ish thing ala Cryengine?) or anything at all, because manually doing it one by one is a pain!
I'm researching at the moment, but I figured I'd post the question while I do, since time ain't on my side. Maybe just a keyword I can google for would help a million! Cheers.
EDIT: haha, nevermind. I found a tutorial on exactly what I want like 5 seconds after posting. I'm lucky today!
Holding alt while you perform a transformation (move, rotate) will create a copy of the selected actor that you then transform instead of the original. So if you wanted to grab a bunch of things and make a duplicate of them somewhere else on the map, it's handy to just alt-drag out a copy, and then shift-drag them so the camera moves along with the selected assets. Very helpful for when you want a bunch of things perfectly aligned in a row, but could be handy if you've made a random-looking clump of objects that you can then dupe around.
for those of you interested, I found this while searching some info on compiling UDK to iOS.
Don't know if it works or not for regular PC release or Iphone, I broke it somewhere along the line. It seems that some of the naming conventions have changed since he wrote it.
Sorry if this was already posted somewhere else, tried to search it before I posted.
Hey guys, having a little issue getting a Cinematic to play when the level is loaded. Here is a screen of Kismet, I thought I was doing this right, my google research is the same as mine.
I'm attempting to use the -dumpmovie command, which is working fine, but I can't even get my cinematic to play at all when I start the level. Any suggestions?
Replies
Real-time reflections actually don't use the reflect node-- they use two channels of the Screen Position node, like this:
Possible point of trouble: this works fine on the July build, but doesn't seem to work at all on the August build. Not sure if it got broken, or if there's a problem with my video drivers, or what. Never seen anyone else mention it, so it's probably a personal problem.
Cheers
If object space normal maps aren't supported in UDK its going to be a huge pain in the ass to redo my UVs and add supporting geometry so that the tangent space can bake cleanly.
I attached an image of what I'm working on from the max viewport. Things like those columns and supporting arches are in object space for the better smoothing quality
Thanks for the help. I was able to get real time reflections up and running fairly easily.
But it seems to be pretty resource dependent. Is there anyway to get the same alignment with the reflections without using real time reflections? Anytime I use a cubemap its impossible to line it up so its believable.
If I decide not to use real time reflections I'm assuming my best bet would be to use a generic blurry texture for the reflections, so there is no issue of alignment with the level?
One thing that might work is making a low detailed version that is exactly the same as the real room. Then use render to texture to render the reflection as if it is reflecting that other room. Think of it as a portal to a low res version of your room (I believe there are tutorials on doing a plain portal around on the net).
I haven't thought out all the details but I think it might work and give you some better performance compared to reflecting the real thing.
A cheaper version would be to even just place the lores copy mirrored under the floor and make the floor material slightly transparent. This assumes you can actually fit it under your floor of course.
Edit: Obviously both of these solutions means you will not be able to see dynamic objects reflecting but it sounds like that is a compromise you already was prepared to do.
Edit2: AlecMoody, I don't think it does support object space normal maps. Using explicit normals with the fbx format does solve the biggest issues with the normal mapps in UDK though.
Hey thanks for all the info. The performance hit is noticeable with real time reflections but my scene is pretty simple so it might be ok. I'll have to hook up some fraps and find out what my exact fps are.
I'll still gonna be messing around with reflections and shaders today so I'll see how things go. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a way to make cubemaps align better. It wouldn't be such an issue if it was playable with people running around and distracted.. But since I'm just having a couple still shots looking directly at it it doesn't work so well.
I'll see what I can come up with with the mirroring for the bottom floor and and portal concept for the top floor also.
Thanks again.
It's been a while since you asked this, but in case you haven't found the answer since then... as far as I am aware the only way to have the sky not get fogged is using the following settings on the sky's material:
Material
>Blend Mode: BLEND_Translucent
>Lighting Model: MLM_Unlit
Translucency
>Allow Fog: (unchecked)
#1 Can you take a render inside the UDK? And if so, how?
#2 How would I go about making a fisheye lense?
in viewport
in play
Thanks
Anyways, I'm having an issue where my decals aren't accepting shadows. It's as if they are ignoring shadow information. Aside from making sure that they don't appear on terrain, the other settings are at default. I'm not sure what's going on there.
Torso is an accessory attached via sockets.
When torso is getting thrown, socket version goes away, projectile/weapon version comes in.
The reaching into the earth bit is animated in your app of choice and just animate it being pulled up, final resting place is on socket.
You will need to animate the transitions before and after becoming an attachment.
Edit: -sighs- nevermind, it works now.
Working on this scene from Inception:
And I need some nice pointers/tutorials on lighting since I don't know jack about it
And guys. No need for advice about textures/materials at this point.
They are all in a very early stage(no spec, haven't been color-correcting according to original references etc etc.)
So please. Only advice on how to do some awesome lighting
EDIT: And also. If anyone would care to help me out finding a good solution for the metal-material on the elevator doors, I would also be very glad
Do you fix the UVs straight in UDK or in another 3d app?
Thanks! Will try that!
More of a lazy-related problem.
Thing is that I put all the pieces of the corridor together already in Maya and just exported the whole thing. Fair enough I thought, since it was faster for me to do it that way, and I'm new to workflow in UDK.
Sooo If I were to fix that 2nd UV channel I would need to go back to Maya and split everything up and put all the objects into the scene piece by piece in UDK. Because otherwise all the UV's will be overlapping.
Is there a work-around?
have 2 uv channels,
1-uvs for your textured mesh
2-uvs lightmaps
in maya you can just copy uvs to your second uv channel and then...pack or something like that. i use modo so its sketchy from memory what to do in maya.
you shouldn't have to break up your mesh, udk does a realy good job of light baking. maybe if your object its just enormous, then you'd break it up for light map quality.
Is it possible to bake HDR cubemaps in unreal? I know how to generate cubemaps, but they are always dxt1.
Best thing for light map Uv, is to auto-project then use the layout tool with the correct map size (to give the correct pixel buffer size) then normalize. Nine times out of 10 it turns out pretty good without any sort of fiddling around with. (this is maya btw)
Both u guys... Thank you! Will try out both your techniques!
Sometimes when I place a new static mesh in my scene, it doesnt show up when I play the level. Even after rebuilding and such. If I save everything and restart UDK it shows up.
I have checked the properties of the objekt and it's not hidden.
My only hope is they are overhauling how Terrain is generated and the terrain tools, but it's just a hope :P
(edit wrong quote :P)
If your using external packages, make sure to save your package. I've experienced this and scratched my head for quite a while :P
Thanks, I kinda notices this too. Since I needed to save my package when I restarted
Another thing:
Does it give the same result to invert the green channel in photoshop as in using a oneminus node in the material?
Yup.
I made a scene in UDK, and im texturing it at the minute. For the walls and floor I just used bsp, but I made the ceiling in Max as it has a little more detail. How do I import the ceiling into UDK so it acts like bsp and not a mesh. I want to be able to select its surface properties and tile a texture along it, but at the minute it does not give you the option. It is treated like a mesh instead.
Sorry if this has been mentioned before, did some searching and couldnt an answer.
Thanks.
I've one week to learn and make a basic outdoor island map for a school project. All is going well and UDK is great except one inconvenience! I'm using speedtree to make some cool little trees, but my main problem is now that I need to populate my island with them. Is there an easier way than click and dragging them one by one out of the content browser (Maybe a sort of brush-ish thing ala Cryengine?) or anything at all, because manually doing it one by one is a pain!
I'm researching at the moment, but I figured I'd post the question while I do, since time ain't on my side. Maybe just a keyword I can google for would help a million! Cheers.
EDIT: haha, nevermind. I found a tutorial on exactly what I want like 5 seconds after posting. I'm lucky today!
For people who wondered the same: http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3decolayers.htm
for those of you interested, I found this while searching some info on compiling UDK to iOS.
Don't know if it works or not for regular PC release or Iphone, I broke it somewhere along the line. It seems that some of the naming conventions have changed since he wrote it.
Sorry if this was already posted somewhere else, tried to search it before I posted.
I'm attempting to use the -dumpmovie command, which is working fine, but I can't even get my cinematic to play at all when I start the level. Any suggestions?