[WIP] Monster Science Lab -UDK-

ShootandRun

Hi All!

So this is a science lab in which a giant monster is in the process of being created. It's kind of hard to get a sense of the space from the screen shots because it is rather cramped, if anyone would like shots from other angles let me know (all the textures are either wip or just placed there because i hate the checkered boxes)

I have a few questions if anyone could answer would help me out a lot:
-making custom collision - I did the UCX thing in maya for the 2nd floor platform but its not transferring to udk I split it up into 5 pieces. I cant name every piece "UCX_walkwaySupport01" so do i combine them? or group them?

-water caustics - anyone know a better way of doing them than projecting a texture through a light (lightfunction)?

-god-rays - if you look at the first two images they are pretty much the same, however one has the god-rays working while the other does not, the first is what I got by doing printscreen the second is what I got when I did 'tiledimage 01' in the commandline, any ideas as to why I lost my god-rays?
Thanks in advance^


Any criticism or comments would be greatly appreciated. Bash away

Logan5

Bit hard to tell whats going on at the moment due to the early stage your at with this. Love the concept though and can´t figure out why no ones made something like this before. Gonna be watching is closely, good luck dude!

Captain Narway

Is your top platform going to have those sharp, blocky outlines for the final scene? It's an odd shape to have for a top floor in my opinion. Are you planning on attaching tubes or restraints to the monster? Otherwise, as Logan5 said, it's difficult to crit much else this early in the scene.

ShootandRun

Thanks Logan

@Captain Narway
Thanks for the tips, I'm working on a cap for the 2nd floor, floor which i can then hopefully also use to cover up some of my wall seams. I attached tubes to the monster and gave him a chain harness, its more of a support harness than a restraint harness, since he is in the process of being made I'm assuming he is not conscious...that would suck

Update photo:

BeserK

Hey Shoot, looking great so far!
Talking about the collision problem, I use max and if I need more than one collision mesh on a single model I attach them all together (not sure what the maya equivalent is), works perfectly.
Looking forward to seeing your progress!

ShootandRun

Thanks for the tip Beserk
It took me a while to figure out but in the end it was some rather dumb problems. (collision mesh is solid, mesh is wireframed)


I broke the walk way up into 6 pieces, I new that I had to name them UCX_floor:
1)my problem was that I didn't realize how important the underscore was, "UCX_floor_01" "UCX_floor_02" I had it as "UCX_floor02"
2)I had a floating vert from where I deleted an edge without using the 'delete edge/vertex tool' which made it so one of the pieces were overlapping a no-no"
3)I was changing the name under the channels (over the translate X) but I also had to change the name in the "shapes" instead of UCX_floor_01 id did UCX_floor_01_shapes01, I havnt a clue why it did this.
4)also for future reference of other peeps, combining or grouping the collision meshes and then naming it does NOT work.

small update:
I discovered how awesome the water texture is in UDK distort makes really cool light shafts and give the tube a cool water-warp effect. I definitely will take some time to learn the material node set up for it!

ShootandRun

update on the monster, some HP work, wanted him to have extra flesh to 'grow' into since he is in the process of being made.

SirCalalot

Looking pretty solid so far, I can't wait to see what you do with the scene

With regards to you questions:


-water caustics - anyone know a better way of doing them than projecting a texture through a light (lightfunction)?

Short answer - no.
Projecting caustics using a LightFunction is currently the best-looking method you can use for the effect as it distorts over shapes more realistically than using an animated Decal texture. Currently real-time (or light-mapped) caustics in their true sense are not supported by UDK for performance reasons, I believe.
You could try using the Decal method as I might be wrong for the effect you are trying to achieve.


-god-rays - if you look at the first two images they are pretty much the same, however one has the god-rays working while the other does not, the first is what I got by doing printscreen the second is what I got when I did 'tiledimage 01' in the commandline, any ideas as to why I lost my god-rays?

Using the 'Tiledshot' command can sometimes produce inaccurate post-process or special effects, as it simply renders the game frame multiple times and composites them into the final image - rather than actually outputting to that resolution natively.

Try using the 'shot' command (or press F9) to output an image exact to what is being viewed on-screen.

Edit: I love the High-poly model btw.

ShootandRun

SirCalalot - thanks for the tips, I didn't know that stuff about how udk compiles the image with tiledshot, I will try using the shot command, I have a funny feeling that I will just end up doing printscreen for the final screenshots.
(also glad you like the highpoly )

i also come with a new problem, I want to put bubbles in my scene, does anyone have any idea how to do this? I've been trying to get it to work with UnrealCascade, I took the basic falling leave fx effect and made a bubble texture. It looks pretty shitty Maybe i just need a better texture. If anyone can think of other ways I could get the same effect let me know and I'll give it a go.

On a side note, the way I have it right now the bubbles go up but then fall down, I cant seem to find the setting to disable the gravity (im assuming its some setting like this) so that the bubbles only go upwards
below is a screenshot of what the setup I have now looks like.

SirCalalot

You should be able to get a nice effect by creating a fresh new Particle Effect in the content browser.

The default settings should output particles upward like a basic fire.
Change the material to your bubbles and set up the SubUV amount. This is done by changing the 'SubImages_Horizontal' and 'SubImages_Vertical' amount in the 'Required > SubUV' tab to match the grid spacing that you have set in your texture (4, I believe).
Then just change the 'Initial Velocity', 'Initial Size', 'Spawn', and 'Lifetime' settings to match what you desire as they are pretty straightforward.
You might want to right-click and add an 'Initial Location' parameter too, so that your bubbles all don't spawn from the same spot - but then maybe you want them to look like they are coming from a pipe, I dunno :P

For the actual bubble material, try making a black and white bump/height map for your bubbles, Multiply ('M' + click) that by a Constant1Vector ('1' + click) of about 5 then plug that into your Distortion channel.
This will give the illusion of them being round and refracting the light nicely

ShootandRun

So the fire idea was great! I still need to work on the bubble spacing some more but that totally works!!! thankyou thankyou thankyou!!

I love your idea for the distortion and have been trying to get it to work, but I cant seem to get the bubbles to be the right transparency with the alpha around the bubbles to look good. for the particle SubUV I need to have the cutout of the bubbles alphed in the texture, but if I also want the bubbles to to be very transparent udk tweaks out a bit because it cant tell what is supposed to be separated, I will keep messing around with it because I really like the idea. Don't know if someone knows a work around

SirCalalot

Try multiplying the black and white distortion texture with your alpha map.
All the values in the alpha map that are black will be cut out with any luck and it should fix your issues

ShootandRun

Sry for taking so long with replying, so I got the bubbles all figured out! they look very nice, thanks for all your help

one problem I am having is that when the emitter is not in the players screen the particles disappear, I'm assuming this is something to do with LOD, and I cant find the, what im assuming will be a checkbox, to uncheck. If anyone knows how to fix this it would be super. (i do have a slight work around in place right now, there is an emitter on the bottom of the tube and then three in the middle with initial locations at like -700 on the z-axis)

c&c please



Here is a screencap of the material I put together to get the effect, for the particle effect it was the fire cascade particle effect that I swapped the images and changes a number of values.

MADAMEC

This is cool. I like the concept, the lighting seems a bit off, It may just be the main tube, maybe some more color could be brought it in? If this is a science lab, I feel like you'd expect it to be a bit brighter, or more uniformly lit.

Also the lift is oddly flat..

The Lone Penguin

Yoon are you using point lights or emissive to light your scene?

ShootandRun

@Madamec
I will continue to work with the colors, lighting is definitely something which I have been struggling with, if you or anyone else has tips I would love em

@Hiley
point and spot, Buck was saying that I should have areas which draw the player in so I was going to have some emissive lights highlighted with spot lights so like the generator on the first floor and the hologram computers. I'm having a hard time figuring out what color lights to put in there. (there are no emissives which are actually giving off light)

The Lone Penguin

Watched an eat3d tutorial showing off using primarily emissive to light the scene, give that a try and see how it looks. And not from the material, in the static actor settings.

ShootandRun

Those emissive are working, niccce thanks for the tip. Still a lot of work to do

Does anyone know how to randomize an effect in the material editor? The screens have a flicker and panning effect to them, however they all occur at the same time. Any help would be greatly appreciated :thumbup:

ShootandRun

working on the upstairs part, it was a circus of colors because I was trying to add color to the scene because was like 90% gray metal. Now I am trying to pull back because before this it the scene literally punched you in the face with bright colors.





For the three screens the text is panning downward. Does ANYONE know how to make it so the panning text will either start at a random point or scroll and random speeds for each instance of it in the scene? What I would like is to not have to create a new material for each screen, but I would like them not to all look identical when the player is looking at them in game.

ShootandRun

Overall screenshots of the scene as it is now. I changed the lighting a bunch bringin in new colors. Do people like it? Still tryin to get the lighting right because I suck at it

Any tips or ideas for adding color or lighting I will gladly try and post pics :]

made some new holograms, unwrapped some of the assets on the wall so its not a blurry metal. Changed the water texture though that doesn't show up in the screenshots. Changed the bubble material so they seem less like white 2d planes.

Dim

Needs moar color. Maybe not this, but certainly something.