Ben thats a pretty good tutorial except in the latest builds of unreal with lightmass and all that you don't need to have the padding on the edges of the maps anymore.
That's not entirely accurate as I have done many test cases using LM(Lightmass) and found that while you don't need aggressive padding on your light map UVW you do still need some or you will get bleeding.
Hi all, thought I would post a quick question here that popped up today.
I have started playing around with making vegetation in Unreal 3 and I would like to know if I can make plants reactive to the player....and is it worth it?
I ask because I have large leafed plants I think may be better if they react to players and other things maybe?
i don't know if this is possible but we made a mistake with one of our packages, the name string is just too long, no problem on the pc but if we want to cook for ps3 it would be great to be able to change the name of the package and all references with it together, because if i just change it windows, unreal of course can't find the new package, so is there a way to do this, maybe via console or whatever?
@evolution: maybe create the plant as a skeletal mesh with a Physicsobject bound to it that reacts/collides with the player?
Oh man, sorry to hear that Neox, I know that's a PITA. Even if you rename assets and place into another package UED keeps references and pointers in the old package. Back at Midway we had a tool that renamed packages and killed all references/pointers. I don't know of any consumer tools that can do that.
I was wondering in unreal 3 editor can you, in the material editor , do something like combining two textures. May not be exactly like this but something similar. Thanks guys
The files are done. I will upload a link for you to DL all the source for this. I'll edit this post with info in a few moments.
Ok, so I did something called a "grey pack". Each channel in a certain image controls where something will show up. I've never been able to get all 3 working in Maya, I test the tiling as I work on a section.
In UED, I set up my material as follows. You can set up a master material and use it for all your terrain bits by exposing certain params (tiling factor and images used).
The result is something like this. I pray you spend more time on it than I did.
As for the terrain editor in UED. That's a whole 'nother ball game. It does all this pretty much the same (only better). But editing can be a PITA. I prefer bringing in chunks of meshes and creating collision for them.
I use vertex colors every now and then, like if you can't tell, then I'd use it. Sometimes you can see that obvious vertex color blending between texture transitions.
In Maya, just paint with red, green or blue. Have some good blending.
Ignore UED not showing the node previews correctly.
Here are the files. What you want to look at is how I used the texture for the single and double. I can put like 3 road variations on the single road UV sheet.
As for the double, it's just easier to work with. Take a look at the UV relationship editor and the road material on that one.
Download the source files here (MAYA 2009): ::LINKY::.
If you want to see how this is set up in UED, let me know.
Here is how I do decals, colored grunge and debris.. err whatever you want to stick on a building. My whole take on material creation is to examine the scene and come up with a list of materials I'd need. From there I see what materials I can consolidate. And from there I make Master Materials, and anything that needs that material I make an instance and change only a few parameters instead of making whole new nodes.
So here is the wall in Maya, I have two UV sets: One for decals, one for the brick. And I liked the UV sets where map2 is linked to the decal, and map1 is for the diffuse. Don't worry about the alpha.
So in UED after I import all the assets, here is how I set up the node. Notice the "TilingFactor" labeled node. That dictates the amount of tiling.
I changed the "TilingFactor" node to 5, notice things still sync up. I didn't have to paint a new decal to match up with it.
The benefit of this is that I can pop in any decal image, any brick image and it will tile correctly and retail the nice brick/painted on look. And this can be used for the majority of my buildings. Add in an AO map and custom lighting if you need. Take this one more step further with a good parallax map network and tie in the second mask for the decal with the grout of the brick, where the edges around each brick shows more wear and tear on the decal.
Questions that may come up:
Q - So why don't you just have an alpha plane over it?
A - It doesn't really look like it's tied into the wall, like it's a part of it. I'd use alpha planes for things like posters and dynamic things. Or if the engine dictated that I needed to for things like this. Also, lighting, as objects in UED that are alpha'd don't get the nice lighting as the other objects. The only way is to have a 1bit alpha (either white or black, no grey) and you'd loose all the nice blended edges.
You can get crazy with this and have a spec value for the painted images in the alpha channel used by a second UV set. Take this value and add it to the spec of the brick. Also you can combine normal maps in UED, by pulling all the channels apart, then putting them back together. This may be overkill, but the surface variations you can get will look badass.
I dunno man, I've been looking. If it's in there, then it must be a PITA to get going and not all spiffy like I had at work. I loved making things break ::sniff::
well how should someone answer? depends... what do you want to do? its ok to overlap when you have similar things its ok to share uvs, but if you want to bake lights your then better have either unique uvs or a second uv set with unique uvs
I have a empty room that shares one texture. The uv's are scattered and overlapped all over the place to cover this one texture. If I did bake lights for this room the bake wouldn't come out right?
Thanks. I'll probably go with the 2nd uv set to bake the lighting then.
Then remember to tell UED what UV channel the lightmaps will bake to. Default is UV0. I am assuming you are gonna add a second UV channel and leave the original in the slot it's in.
Then remember to tell UED what UV channel the lightmaps will bake to. Default is UV0. I am assuming you are gonna add a second UV channel and leave the original in the slot it's in.
Yes. That's what I'm gonna do. Also will the overlapping in the uv0 channel affect my normals? Or do I also have to make another channel for that as well?
I have a wall that gets blown out by an explosion, but just one panel of the wall. This panel is a skeletal mesh. Right next to this panel are many static meshes that look identical to the skel mesh wall panel. If I enable the BSP or Static lighting chanel for the skeletal mesh, it seems to work but then when i dump frames it just turns black again. Can anyone suggest how I might match the lighting on the two?
So I've made a material that uses lerps for an rgb blendmap. This works fine for my terrain as I can just paint a specific blendmap across the whole surface in my 3d app.
I'm trying to blend across multiple static mesh instances for smaller architectural modules though- is there any nice way of doing this is UE3 and maya/max?
The last engine I worked with didn't use instancing (for the most part) - so we could just paint blendmaps across multiple objects in maya which shared a common uv set 2 (or each piece had a unique space on a uv layout shared by many pieces for one blendmap) This allows different blending across essentially the "same" mesh. Scenes were constructed in maya and exported straight to the game.
Is there a way to have unique uv sets per instance for static meshes? Not sure if I'm on the right track here... or if this is just gonna be a huge pita and I should come up with other ways of adding variation to my scene.. or screw instancing for UC2009 and just export static meshes per building after constructing them from modules in maya/max.
edit: or - and I hope this wouldn't be the only way - I could paint a tonne of different blendmaps for each module and apply different materials depending on the instance in UE3.. ouch
Hey Neox yeah I was definitely thinking along those lines - what I am after is a way of painting across multiple instances, which would need to be done in UE3 after constructing the scene I think. And I don't think there isn't any mesh paint tools in UE3? I'm quite the noob in UE3.
edit, again: I guess the difference is:
My ye olde way of working - single blendmap over many non-instanced objects using uvset 2 where many object's uv coords are compiled into a single 0-1 for lightmaps, Ao etc
And to achieve the same effect in UE3 - unique blendmaps for many instanced meshes using uvset 2, where uvset 2 coords probably occupy 0-1 per mesh as per lightmap setup
never heard of such a thing i don't think the terrainpainting will work, did you try exporting meshes from unreal to obj and look into the uvs? maybe you have both sets
Shape: you can use decals instead? Decals can project information onto multiple objects, and you don't need to do multiple UV sets.
You can set your decal up to be modular, addative, masked, opacity blend, etc in your material, then put it on a decal actor, and point it at your scene. This is a great way to add drips, stains, posters, sometimes paint stripes & stuff.
That way, you can paint what you need to paint in 2d in photoshop (over a screenshot) then have it as its own material in the engine
Hey guys is there a special command to get a wireframe/shaded or wireframe/lightingonly view rather than the standard "viewmode wireframe" which gives you the wireframe with a black background. I noticed Peris shows one in his UC entry from last year.
Question: i'm following hourences guide on terrain, but when its supposed to paint texture, it keeps just painting the terrain up.... any ideas? -i've definately got standard paint tool selected - i think i'm missing something
You are on the height brush/layer
try changing the brushes, theres little icons somewhere. I think you need to set up texture layers too and make sure you have them selected. its been ages since i used it though
Sometimes it still paints height when you're not on the terrain height layer. Just go to the second material layer and paint with Ctrl - right mouse button; that way you'll erase that layer and paint back the first one. I think it's a bit of a bug.
I've been reading quite a few ways (some rather funky) of creating decals in Unreal Ed. Anyone with a lot of experience with it care to chime in with a good way of doing so? Thanks
yo, i'm learning the unreal editor for the unearthly challenge, and i have a big novice problem, i can't move anything in my viewport. I have a red cross instead of my move gizmo, its the same cross you get when you press G to unhide the icones. Does anyone know where that lock could come from?
ok that was just the icone near the move icone x) (thx for the pm ^^)
I've been reading quite a few ways (some rather funky) of creating decals in Unreal Ed. Anyone with a lot of experience with it care to chime in with a good way of doing so? Thanks
many different ways
majority come down to how you set up your material, blending modes like additive or modulate or even translucent.
then just assign it as a decal material.
you could also embed decals within your objects material and parametize (made up word) the variables so its flexible for material instances, but with that comes an increase in textures aapplied at once to the same surface, but the benefits are easier to manage, and more control and the ability to manipulate an objects spec with your decals too.
I see quite often so called blockouts made in UnrealEd. Their purpose is understandable, however I can't really figure out what to do next? Is there some way to export these blockouts to 3d modeling program or what?
The blockout meshes should be built in your 3d app first then imported into Unreal, they are really just there as placeholders. If you keep the pivots in the same places all you need to do is re-import final meshes and textures into your package from your 3d app and everything will be updated.
That way there is no need to rebuild the scene in Unreal and you can also see if there will be any scale, tiling, or grid issues before you start building any final artwork and take care of them in the early stages.
It should be pretty much just like having it start on level start, you just switch out the "level startup" node with a "trigger touch status" node or something. I used a trigger volume rather than a trigger but it works the same way. This will activate the camera and it will stay in that view until the end of the matinee sequence.
Soft edges from smoothing groups are disappearing in UT3 after baking light maps. Is there any way to keep the soft lighting from smoothing groups during a light bake in UT3?
Here's a shot showing the issue, the hay on the right is using dynamic lighting, the one on the left has a light bake, identical otherwise:
Soft edges from smoothing groups are disappearing in UT3 after baking light maps. Is there any way to keep the soft lighting from smoothing groups during a light bake in UT3?
Are you sure thats whats happening? Is there a UV seam there on your lightmap? Looks like a lightmap res issue to me. What does it look like in lighting only mode? What about baking vertex lit or increasing the lightmap res?
Replies
That's not entirely accurate as I have done many test cases using LM(Lightmass) and found that while you don't need aggressive padding on your light map UVW you do still need some or you will get bleeding.
I have started playing around with making vegetation in Unreal 3 and I would like to know if I can make plants reactive to the player....and is it worth it?
I ask because I have large leafed plants I think may be better if they react to players and other things maybe?
anyway, thank you
@evolution: maybe create the plant as a skeletal mesh with a Physicsobject bound to it that reacts/collides with the player?
Here you go:
Here is how I do decals, colored grunge and debris.. err whatever you want to stick on a building. My whole take on material creation is to examine the scene and come up with a list of materials I'd need. From there I see what materials I can consolidate. And from there I make Master Materials, and anything that needs that material I make an instance and change only a few parameters instead of making whole new nodes.
So here is the wall in Maya, I have two UV sets: One for decals, one for the brick. And I liked the UV sets where map2 is linked to the decal, and map1 is for the diffuse. Don't worry about the alpha.
So in UED after I import all the assets, here is how I set up the node. Notice the "TilingFactor" labeled node. That dictates the amount of tiling.
I changed the "TilingFactor" node to 5, notice things still sync up. I didn't have to paint a new decal to match up with it.
The benefit of this is that I can pop in any decal image, any brick image and it will tile correctly and retail the nice brick/painted on look. And this can be used for the majority of my buildings. Add in an AO map and custom lighting if you need. Take this one more step further with a good parallax map network and tie in the second mask for the decal with the grout of the brick, where the edges around each brick shows more wear and tear on the decal.
Questions that may come up:
Q - So why don't you just have an alpha plane over it?
A - It doesn't really look like it's tied into the wall, like it's a part of it. I'd use alpha planes for things like posters and dynamic things. Or if the engine dictated that I needed to for things like this. Also, lighting, as objects in UED that are alpha'd don't get the nice lighting as the other objects. The only way is to have a 1bit alpha (either white or black, no grey) and you'd loose all the nice blended edges.
You can get crazy with this and have a spec value for the painted images in the alpha channel used by a second UV set. Take this value and add it to the spec of the brick. Also you can combine normal maps in UED, by pulling all the channels apart, then putting them back together. This may be overkill, but the surface variations you can get will look badass.
Download source files (Maya 2009/UED) here: ::LINKY::
Oh not sure to be honest. I'm sure you could do them. I did a lot of breakables and multiple objects on Singularity.
Thanks. I'll probably go with the 2nd uv set to bake the lighting then.
Yes. That's what I'm gonna do. Also will the overlapping in the uv0 channel affect my normals? Or do I also have to make another channel for that as well?
I have a wall that gets blown out by an explosion, but just one panel of the wall. This panel is a skeletal mesh. Right next to this panel are many static meshes that look identical to the skel mesh wall panel. If I enable the BSP or Static lighting chanel for the skeletal mesh, it seems to work but then when i dump frames it just turns black again. Can anyone suggest how I might match the lighting on the two?
interesting article on Epic Games hiring process. Thought it would be good to post in the UE3 section
thanks for sharing !
I'm trying to blend across multiple static mesh instances for smaller architectural modules though- is there any nice way of doing this is UE3 and maya/max?
The last engine I worked with didn't use instancing (for the most part) - so we could just paint blendmaps across multiple objects in maya which shared a common uv set 2 (or each piece had a unique space on a uv layout shared by many pieces for one blendmap) This allows different blending across essentially the "same" mesh. Scenes were constructed in maya and exported straight to the game.
Is there a way to have unique uv sets per instance for static meshes? Not sure if I'm on the right track here... or if this is just gonna be a huge pita and I should come up with other ways of adding variation to my scene.. or screw instancing for UC2009 and just export static meshes per building after constructing them from modules in maya/max.
edit: or - and I hope this wouldn't be the only way - I could paint a tonne of different blendmaps for each module and apply different materials depending on the instance in UE3.. ouch
edit, again: I guess the difference is:
My ye olde way of working - single blendmap over many non-instanced objects using uvset 2 where many object's uv coords are compiled into a single 0-1 for lightmaps, Ao etc
And to achieve the same effect in UE3 - unique blendmaps for many instanced meshes using uvset 2, where uvset 2 coords probably occupy 0-1 per mesh as per lightmap setup
I'll adjust
You can set your decal up to be modular, addative, masked, opacity blend, etc in your material, then put it on a decal actor, and point it at your scene. This is a great way to add drips, stains, posters, sometimes paint stripes & stuff.
That way, you can paint what you need to paint in 2d in photoshop (over a screenshot) then have it as its own material in the engine
http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=843936&postcount=1
try changing the brushes, theres little icons somewhere. I think you need to set up texture layers too and make sure you have them selected. its been ages since i used it though
ok that was just the icone near the move icone x) (thx for the pm ^^)
majority come down to how you set up your material, blending modes like additive or modulate or even translucent.
then just assign it as a decal material.
you could also embed decals within your objects material and parametize (made up word) the variables so its flexible for material instances, but with that comes an increase in textures aapplied at once to the same surface, but the benefits are easier to manage, and more control and the ability to manipulate an objects spec with your decals too.
The latter technique is something I favour but isn;t actually decals I suppose. Hourences site has a write up on normal decals-
http://hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3decals.htm
I see quite often so called blockouts made in UnrealEd. Their purpose is understandable, however I can't really figure out what to do next? Is there some way to export these blockouts to 3d modeling program or what?
The blockout meshes should be built in your 3d app first then imported into Unreal, they are really just there as placeholders. If you keep the pivots in the same places all you need to do is re-import final meshes and textures into your package from your 3d app and everything will be updated.
That way there is no need to rebuild the scene in Unreal and you can also see if there will be any scale, tiling, or grid issues before you start building any final artwork and take care of them in the early stages.
I usually set a camera to trigger as soon as the level loads but the switch way would be more helpful I think but not sure how to go about it.
Here's a shot showing the issue, the hay on the right is using dynamic lighting, the one on the left has a light bake, identical otherwise:
-Tyler