Setting up udk - creating an environment

Sharvo

Hello all,

I have some questions about how you set up a new project in udk. My system is not the best in the world and sometimes crashes whilst udk is baking lightmaps and so on. Which destroys the environment i lose basically everything in the package.
It also says that my files are external and cant find them.

So my question is how do you set up files for udk? Do you have folders within udk, with meshes, textures materials etc or do you just leave them in another area for example i just leave mine in the maya project. Is this a problem?

I am just trying to understand udk a bit better.

A bit off topic sometimes when i export an object from maya with a number of materials for example 5, sometimes in the static mesh properties it looks for like 25 and my materials move to different material slots. I also get that the static mesh has x number of pieces with zero triangles, what have i done?

I know thats all a bit random, but these are some hurdles i am trying to get over from my last project i did.

Thanks in advance

Ace-Angel

Create UPK, save UPK.
Create Map (.udk), save Map.

Next time you load up something, load the UPK first, THEN load the Map. UDK is very much hierarchy based, so it will always look and load for came first or requires to be loaded first.

Xendance

You have to save the content packages in the content folder. Otherwise UDK won't find them next time you start it and says that you're referencing to external content (external as in out of the content folder).
You can open external packages by clicking the "open external package" in the content browser. It's in the lower left corner.

Visceral

Sharvo wrote: »

A bit off topic sometimes when i export an object from maya with a number of materials for example 5, sometimes in the static mesh properties it looks for like 25 and my materials move to different material slots.

You should probably explain this a bit better, im not 100% i understand this part and what i make of it it probably will cause problems later on.

Mik2121

Ace-Angel, you don't need to load the package first. When you load the map, it will automatically load the meshes, materials, textures, etc... being used in the scene. After that, if you wanna keep modifying the package or wanna see the whole thing, just fully load it and that's it.

Ace-Angel

^
I tried that many time and never worked?

unstoppablex

you're both correct. what mik2121 is explaining is when you put your package in the UDK directory, so when udk loads, your package is already there, loaded. but if it isn't you must manually load your package before loading the .udk

Mik2121

Ace-Angel wrote: »

^
I tried that many time and never worked?

Weird. If you keep your package inside the Contents folder, when you open a new map it automatically loads parts of the package that are being used in the scene. All you need to do is fully load it if you wanna check everything inside said package, including elements not in the scene.

As Unstoppablex said, this is just if you work within the UDK folder. If you have external packages, then yeah, you need to load them first.

Bumper

Ok, I'm confused.

I'm relatively new to UDK and have yet (I think) to get my packages/map combos right.

Take for instance the env I'm working on now; I created a package and saved it as Contents/Lab_Packages/Lab_Assets.

I then saved the map as Maps/Lab/Lab.

Low and behold, I now have a package within my Lab Map directory called Lab. While it saves when I select SaveAll the package I created (Lab_Assets) does not.

Am I putting the emPHASIS on the wrong syllABLE? Please advise.

sprunghunt

Bumper wrote: »

Low and behold, I now have a package within my Lab Map directory called Lab. While it saves when I select SaveAll the package I created (Lab_Assets) does not.

The Save All command only saves maps. Save packages using the content browser.

Xendance

Save all writable should save normal packages also.

SirCalalot

The simple solution is to create a folder called 'MyMaps' or something in the same directory that the demo maps are in.