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  • Gannon
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    Gannon interpolator
    Froyok wrote: »
    The problem of this tutorial that he is a little outdated now...

    Most of the things that are out of date are simple naming conventions and one prefix file from what i've noticed.
  • EMC3D
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    EMC3D polycounter lvl 7
    On a small nitpick note,

    Is anyone getting In editor and In game lightmap mipping / lightmap changes when you zoom out and in to a model. It seems to happen on any lightmap size at and above 256, 128 and lower is fine, no mipping errors.

    Cheers
  • rasmus
    Mr Bear: Yep, I'm getting it, and it's a nitpick bit annoying. I always felt that lightmaps shouldn't be mipped, atleast not within a certain range... Especially here since they pop from one level to another. In my case I rarely see the lightmaps at their highest (intended) resolution as they're on background objects, so it would be great if there was a global force mips to OFF on lightmaps maybe. Or is the solution to go in by hand in the lightmap texture properties and force mips to off there? Impractical considering lightmaps are regenerated on bakes...

    Also, about the popping of mips and the visible transitions between mips in general, is this something that can be fixed by changing to trilinear/anisotropic filtering in the .ini's?
  • Zack Fowler
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    Zack Fowler polycounter lvl 11
    Yeah, it's pretty irritating. Wouldn't be nearly so bad if it mipped properly per-pixel rather than popping an entire degree for the whole asset at once. Either way, though, lightmaps are usually so low resolution it doesn't seem like a good idea to mip them, and certainly not so aggressively.
  • 100Chihuahuas
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    100Chihuahuas polycounter lvl 7
    I'm having a small issue with exporting a static mesh from softimage XSI to UDK. The object has three separate materials on it, but it only exports to UDK with one material covering the entire object.
    I have re-downloaded the actorX plugin for my XSIx64, tried re-assigning materials in XIS, tried different materials in XSI, still no luck.

    What is really strange is that I have exported this object before into UDK and did not have this problem - all 3 materials stayed separate.
    The only thing I have changed is that I put the actorX.dll into my softimage plugin folder so I could load it more easily. I thought this might be the problem, so I put it back in the UDK plugin folder hoping it would fix my problem, but no luck!

    I would really appreciate it if anyone could help me out
  • Mypeople
    Hey taylor, i use to use xsi for years, now i use modo and fbx exporting. i originally exported out of modo>maya>actor x now i just use fbx. i recommend using that.
  • katzeimsack
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    katzeimsack polycounter lvl 17
    Is there a way to transform a reflection vector without the transform node?
    Vertexcolors don't work when you use the transform node...

    I need a correct cubemap AND vertexcolor.

    "Warning: VertexColor is mutually exclusive with the Transform node due to limited interpolators. If you use both a Transform node and VertexColor, then VertexColor will come out all white."
  • 100Chihuahuas
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    100Chihuahuas polycounter lvl 7
    Mypeople wrote: »
    Hey taylor, i use to use xsi for years, now i use modo and fbx exporting. i originally exported out of modo>maya>actor x now i just use fbx. i recommend using that.

    Thank you for the tip! I tried exporting as FBX and it worked, then I tried an .ase export again and it was perfect. I wonder what i was doing wrong!
  • 100Chihuahuas
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    100Chihuahuas polycounter lvl 7
    Terrain question!

    Is it possible to paint normal maps onto my terrain? For example, I think it would be neat to have some normal-mapped footprints on a certain part of my terrain. Does anyone know if this is possible to only paint in normal maps (instead of having to create another full terrain material)
    Any pointers would be much appreciated!




    @luke yeah, can't you change the rotation degree amount on the bottom right hand corner, close to where you can change the translation snapping? And make sure the pivot point is int eh right place in MAX when importing it.
  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 18
    Hey guys,

    I'm not familiar with UDK (yet) and wanted to attempt to import a custom character, using existing animations. I tried this in UT2K4 way back and back then you could get a skeleton for Maya which you could use as a reference and later bind your mesh to.

    I'm probably missing something here, but where can I get a current Maya version of the default character joints for UDK?

    I search the UDN network site which only seems to offer a Max skeleton. I skimmed through the 51 pages of this thread.Searched the UDK sub-forum here on Polycount. Did a quick search on the PC wiki and the BeyondUnreal wiki. Came up short.

    Can anyone point me in the right direction. Thanks
  • 100Chihuahuas
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    100Chihuahuas polycounter lvl 7
    *EDIT: Fixed it! Turned out I didn't have a player start, silly me.**


    Rendering cinematics in UDK! :D

    I have my shots all lined up correctly, but I am having trouble with the command line to get UDK to render out my stuff. I have created a desktop shortcut that goes like this:

    C:\UDK\UDK-2010-09\Binaries\Win32\UDK.exe UEDPIETaylor_b17_map_05_terrain.udk -BENCHMARK -MAXQUALITYMODE -NOTEXTURESTREAMING -DUMPMOVIE -FPS=30 -ResX=1280 -ResY=720

    Searching around on the internet and in some UDN documents, I believe the above command line is what I want. But this leads me to the game start-up scene, which then tells me that it 1. cannot find my map, or 2. the program freezes and stops working.
    I have been working in the UDK editor and that is where my scene is.
    How can I get the command line to open up the UDK editor instead of the UDK game start menu?
    Or, how can I get my map into that game part? (when I try loading my map, UDK stops working)

    Any input would be greatly appreciated :)
  • jackalope
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    jackalope polycounter lvl 11
    I am having a problem with Matinee. I am doing some camera movements and everything looks fine, and the way i want it. then when i close matinee it shifts my camera down and also turns it. It will play the animation but its offset. I was using the September version of UDK, so i downloaded the November version, but it is still doing the same thing. any help would be appreciated.
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    How can I get the command line to open up the UDK editor instead of the UDK game start menu?
    Or, how can I get my map into that game part? (when I try loading my map, UDK stops working)

    Any input would be greatly appreciated :)
    Use the unreal frontend. You have more options with this tool (can be found in the udk folder).
    And a more advanced technics : change the ini files for what you want : http://www.hourences.com/an-entire-simple-udk-game/
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    Haha, I somehow managed to get lost enough that I just posted this in the archive forum Unreal thread! Anyway...

    Quick question! I've heard recently that UDK no supports custom normals in meshes, ie. you can edit the normals in max and carry it into UDK... but where and hat are the options for this? I see nothing likely when exporting as an ASE and no options importing... my carefully configured model now looks like someone did an auto smooth on it in UDK!

    Thanks.
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    fearian wrote: »
    Haha, I somehow managed to get lost enough that I just posted this in the archive forum Unreal thread! Anyway...

    Quick question! I've heard recently that UDK no supports custom normals in meshes, ie. you can edit the normals in max and carry it into UDK... but where and hat are the options for this? I see nothing likely when exporting as an ASE and no options importing... my carefully configured model now looks like someone did an auto smooth on it in UDK!

    Thanks.

    Only with FBX.
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    Cheers haiddasalami! I happened to find the answer just as you posted! :P

    A tiny bit more info is here, for anyone else wondering the same thing:
    http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentBlog.html#Explicit%20Normal%20Support
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    another question: I've had some problems reimporting meshes where they ignore explicit normals. The only way to get explicit normals back is to import the mesh again from scratch. This means I have to delete the old one and replace every instance of it in the scene again. It's a massive pain in the ass.

    is there any good way to replace the copies of one model in a scene with another?
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    fearian wrote: »
    another question: I've had some problems reimporting meshes where they ignore explicit normals. The only way to get explicit normals back is to import the mesh again from scratch. This means I have to delete the old one and replace every instance of it in the scene again. It's a massive pain in the ass.

    is there any good way to replace the copies of one model in a scene with another?

    alt drag your models or instance your models. then when you reimport they all change. If you right click the mesh and export it from your 3d package as the same name, UDK will just go ahead and replace all instances with the new mesh. Only thing is you have to name it the same. I think you can do it also without naming it the same but havent messed around with it.
  • Forgetful
    Hi fellas, I just have a quick question. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a tutorial that would show me how to rig meshes for cloth simulation in Maya. All the guides out there seem to be for Max.

    I'm having trouble applying the Max guides for this subject to Maya. This seems to be the best Max guide out there
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwXsHvlVryE[/ame]

    Any kind of "translation" would be greatly and I mean hugely... appreciated.
  • kyle.rau
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    kyle.rau polycounter lvl 8
    super quick question:

    Foliage factory cannot do static lighting, only dynamic?
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    alt drag your models or instance your models. then when you reimport they all change. If you right click the mesh and export it from your 3d package as the same name, UDK will just go ahead and replace all instances with the new mesh. Only thing is you have to name it the same. I think you can do it also without naming it the same but havent messed around with it.

    Yeah, I knew this, but when I reimport, the model seems to forget that I checked 'use implicit normals' and some other settings, and basically reimports itself wrong. If I imported the same export as a new mesh however, it works fine. But then I have to manually replace the old with the new. :(
  • rasmus
    fearian: I think I've run into the same issue, but for me just importing the latest mesh anew gives me the correct import options and automatically overwrites the older existing one. By Unreal logic there is no way you could have both an old and a new version of the same mesh with the same name in the same scene. It should work ;)
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    Do'h! so simple! I always renamed the mesh to avoid some kind of catastrophic naming confusion. Thanks, Rasmus!
  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 15
    can anyone help me with this. ive seen a few threads about this before and have tried some suggestions which helped a bit.. but im still trying to figure this out. i have a mesh that im duplicating all over. the mesh has overlapping UVs, so i have a second uv channel for a lightmap. the issue seems not to be the light map but the normal direction (?? if i have said that correctly) wondering how i can get them to uniformly blend into each other.
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    your attachments didn't upload properly :B So I can't tell what the problem is.

    this thread might be worth a glance? http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78202
  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 15
    odd.. here's alternate link. that thread you linked me too isnt quite what im going thru.. its more of an instancing issue within shadowed areas.. areas that are hit by light seem to be ok

    hmmm.jpg
  • Ben Apuna
    @Oniram:

    Looks like the mirrored normal map in UDK issue. Before you get really involved trying to fix this keep in mind it can't be solved 100%, just reduced.

    Here's a copy/paste from a PM with another Polycounter:

    You'll need to make sure that the UV seam runs vertically in relation to the UV window. In other words mirror the UVs like turning the pages of a book rather than the pages of a calender (I forgot who came up with that analogy, but it's a good one.).

    The geometry itself should be flat where the UV seam is located as well.

    Mirror_UVs_UDK.gif

    Another thing that can have a big impact on mirror seams with baked lighting is lightmap UVs. It's best to have as few seams as possible on the lightmap UVs in order to keep the lighting smooth and continuous. Of course if you want hard edged lighting like around a 90° corner for instance then you need to split the lightmap UVs.

    Lightmap UVs in Unreal also need at least 2 pixels of padding around each shell, so 4 pixels total between two shells to avoid light bleeding from one shell to another.

    You can also try to turn the Indirect Normal Influence Boost to 0 rather than the default of 0.3(?), this seemed to help reduce the specular seam that happens with mirrored normal maps in older versions of UDK (I haven't switched to a newer one for a while...). The setting can be found under:

    View -> World Properties -> Lightmass -> Lightmass Settings -> Indirect Normal Influence Boost

    And lastly even with all of that work the seam will only be minimized, not removed 100% :(

    EDIT:

    Oh silly me :poly136: I just noticed that it's one mesh rotated around... It could still be the Indirect Normal Influence Boost or the Lightmap UVs.

    Good luck.
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    Epic use detail normal maps to hide the seems, but this might not be suitable for such a clean futuristic style you have going on there.
  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 15
    @Ben: thx. thats a good amount of knowledge for me to take note of.. even if it doesnt apply to this piece. :D

    @fearian: yeah. i have some detail normals but they are scaled around 16-24 times, something very small and minute. changing out which detail normal im using however sometimes yields different results.

    i got it ALMOST figured out. after about 31427902538032108000 tries at making different light maps.. i found one that looks pretty good.. only thing is that i upped the lightmap res to about 64 or 128... dont know how bad that will be for performance, or if it just takes longer to build lighting (as i have noticed). i will continue to try and figure it out. thx again.
  • wisebrownmonkey
    I was wondering if you guys would know how to fix this problem: I try to lightmap in my level. It used to run fine until I did something to it. I have a lightmass importance volume in my level. I didn't change any setting on it, it has just the default settings. When ever I try to build the lighting it will either take about a 7 + hours and still continue or it will fail. with this error:

    elephantmen_level WorldInfo_0 Maps need lighting rebuilt

    this is the only error I get. So I try to rebuild and it fails. The level is nothing to big. It is just an alley way. Thanks for the help. If any more info is needed let me know.
  • wisebrownmonkey
    I looked up in the swarm agent log and I get this error:
    AM: Assertion failed: MappingContext.FirstBounceCache.InterpolateLighting(RepresentativeVertex, FALSE, FALSE, IndirectLighting) [File:.\Lighting\Src\VertexMapping.cpp] [Line: 965]
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    Oniram wrote: »
    only thing is that i upped the lightmap res to about 64 or 128... dont know how bad that will be for performance, or if it just takes longer to build lighting (as i have noticed). i will continue to try and figure it out. thx again.

    Shouldn't be too bad at all performance wise. You can always keep the lightmaps low, and wait until your finalizing your lighting to up the sizes. I have a fair few 512 lightmaps in my scene and It's never been a problem when I run the level.
  • Ben Apuna
    @wisebrownmonkey:

    I have no idea what's wrong with your level but, here's a possible fix:

    Edit -> Select All -> Edit -> Copy -> File -> New... -> Edit -> Paste

    That way you get a "new" level but retain all your objects, lights, volumes, etc... though you might have to redo some world info settings such as lightmass.

    Hopefully that method won't transfer over whatever is messed up in your current level.
  • wisebrownmonkey
    Ben Apuna wrote: »
    @wisebrownmonkey:

    I have no idea what's wrong with your level but, here's a possible fix:

    Edit -> Select All -> Edit -> Copy -> File -> New... -> Edit -> Paste

    That way you get a "new" level but retain all your objects, lights, volumes, etc... though you might have to redo some world info settings such as lightmass.

    Hopefully that method won't transfer over whatever is messed up in your current level.

    thank you so much. Copy pasting it worked. I guess I must have messed with some worldinfo settings or something.
  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 15
    hmmm. that seems like it may be a route i have to take with a current issue im having. for some reason in my level, im getting really blown out lights when i build. basically its as if when i add a light (with a brightness value of 1.. all settings default), and then build, it looks as if the light brightness is somehow at 100. ive come to a few reasons as to why this might happen and was wondering if anyone had any insight to it.

    my thoughts:
    1. i have quite a few objects using emissive for static lighting (at a value of .1 for each of the 300 or so of them that there are).
    2. i have a cubemap on almost all of my textures.
    3. something weird with nov release of udk and ill have to wait..

    if anyone has had this problem or knows what causes it, id greatly appreciate some help. i may try that copy and paste method if this persists tho.
  • d1ver
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    d1ver polycounter lvl 14
    Hey, guys, I've stumbled on a weird issue and now I'm in a dire need of your educated advice.

    normalissue.jpg
    The left of the pic is my mesh actor viewport, you can see that the right part - separate objects that's been mirrored are really dark. Which is totally weird. I've quadruple checked my normals and they are fine. Well I mean they are obviously not fine, but they aren't flipped and all the xforms are reset. What baffles me the most is that the sidemost thingy looks ok, thought it's mirrored too. And ingame the mesh itself is not inverted. But normals that are used to calculate the spec and normal map effect are. That's probably because their uv's are facing different directions.
    And all of that brings me to a strange question:
    Does UDK allow mirroring meshes inside a single object?
    I've been working with udk for so long and I've never had such a problem. I always thought that you can't mirror stuff on a flat surface but other than this it's fine. I mean it should be!

    ...should it? i've wasted away a couple of hours on this thing so I'm pretty damn irritated, so I'm really looking forward to any help. Thanks in advance!

    cheers
  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 15
    hey d1ver. ive recently come across something like this. first.. one thing you might want to try is (if you're using max). use the normalize modifier, and if it flips all of your normals, add an edit poly and select all and flip normals.

    second. check this out.
    http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/LightMapUnwrapping.html

    also you want to make sure your normal map is using tc_Normalmap compression settings.. (sometimes it may help to use tc_normalmapuncompressed)
  • d1ver
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    d1ver polycounter lvl 14
    Hey, thank you, Oniram! Setting to uncompressed helped!
    But what the hell I'm still very interested whatever the hell could be causing it.
    Here's another interesting picture:

    normalissue2.jpg

    It's the mesh with any of my material applied vs. any kinda of default UDK material.
    How the hell is this even possible!? I'm really confused.
  • Ben Apuna
    @d1ver:

    A few posts back on the previous page I posted a bunch of info about mirroring in UDK. Take a look at that and see if any of it helps.

    It might help diagnose the problem if we can see your normal map, UVs, lightmap UVs, and the wireframe of your mesh.

    I personally do not trust what the static mesh editor window displays, what really matters is how the mesh looks after you build your lighting in a level.

    You've got great looking model and texture btw, I hope you can sort this out.
  • d1ver
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    d1ver polycounter lvl 14
    Thanks, Ben!:)
    I've conducted some more research on the matter and have solved what's going on to some extent:

    normalissuefixed.jpg

    All the materials and that make the mesh look that way were instances of the same parent material.
    So, it seems that when the parent material is complied it stores some other kind of normal information independent from the normal map parameter and the mesh itself.


    All other materials work fine. What's strange, even the copy(not instance) of the parent material, with Only some panners added to emissive map, that I've done before, worked ok. While a new copy of this parent map showed the same kind of error. When I changed the normal map in the nm parameter in the parent material the issue was gone. The normal maps had completely identical preferences and were produced the same way.%\

    The lesson to learn here is that, if you see some normal mistakes don't be to quick to fix your mesh, uvs or rebake you normal. Just try it in a completely clean blank material first and you might save yourslef a couple of hours of banging your head against the table.)
  • Forgetful
    Hey fellas. I posted on the last page and didn't get a response, so I'm just asking quietly again.. Does anyone have any knowledge on how to import a cloth mesh from Maya into the UDK. I've seen the Max tutorials, but I can't seem to translate them in terms of Maya.

    Any help would be appreciated.
  • tristamus
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    tristamus polycounter lvl 9
    Forgetful wrote: »
    Hey fellas. I posted on the last page and didn't get a response, so I'm just asking quietly again.. Does anyone have any knowledge on how to import a cloth mesh from Maya into the UDK. I've seen the Max tutorials, but I can't seem to translate them in terms of Maya.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Just use nCloth simulation in maya, and run the animation till the cloth gets to a point where you like it (usually have it fall onto the mesh that it will be on top of in UDK). Then click the cloth / mesh in maya, duplicate it, and save that specific mesh out as an obj when your done with it's uv's (which should be easy if it's just a plane, which it most likely is ;))

    Make sure to freeze ur transofrms / set pivots etc..
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    tristamus wrote: »
    Just use nCloth simulation in maya, and run the animation till the cloth gets to a point where you like it (usually have it fall onto the mesh that it will be on top of in UDK). Then click the cloth / mesh in maya, duplicate it, and save that specific mesh out as an obj when your done with it's uv's (which should be easy if it's just a plane, which it most likely is ;))

    Make sure to freeze ur transofrms / set pivots etc..

    i think he's talking about having dynamic cloth in UDK.
  • Wahlgren
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    Wahlgren polycounter lvl 17
    I'm currently messing around with UDK mobile and for some stupid reason my meshes show up as checkerboards in game (Mobile previewer, standard works fine).

    Currently browsing around testing various approaches. Got any ideas?
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    You want to bake cloth sim? Or bring a cloth object to run within UDK? Within UDK, just tell UDK what bone is the cloth bone. Within Maya, bake simulation to blendshapes, then export.

    Which one do you want? As they both have different workflows.
  • kite212
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    kite212 polycounter lvl 15
    Wahlgren wrote: »
    I'm currently messing around with UDK mobile and for some stupid reason my meshes show up as checkerboards in game (Mobile previewer, standard works fine).

    Currently browsing around testing various approaches. Got any ideas?

    Do you have the materials set for mobile materials, or just the normal expressions?
  • Wahlgren
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    Wahlgren polycounter lvl 17
    I thought there would be no difference Kite. Do I have to check the "Auto Flatten Mobile" option and set it up in there? No expressions at all?


    EDIT: Well that worked. :/
    And here i thought we'd be able to use the material editor fully :)

    EDIT: Oh well. I'll hopefully have a level up and running soon then (all assets etc are complete more or less). Might chuck out some dough for that dev license.
  • kite212
  • Forgetful
    i think he's talking about having dynamic cloth in UDK.
    I was, but I still to appreciate the tip from tristamus :)
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    Wahlgren wrote: »
    EDIT: Oh well. I'll hopefully have a level up and running soon then (all assets etc are complete more or less). Might chuck out some dough for that dev license.
    You don't have to pay Epic till the very end. You can get by on your apple dev lic.
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