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What units do you work with? Ft? Inch? Cm?

acitone
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acitone
I'm scared of working in the wrong units. I use Max and I tend to set the units to "1 unit eqauls 1 inch" but I've opened files with people using centimeters and even meters. I don't know what to use. I'm afraid of having my character too big or too small.

Does it matter?

I do have the display for height set to US feet with decimal inches though, so I can get the character height I want.
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  • cryrid
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    cryrid interpolator
    It rarely matters. As long as your model has the right proportions, then it can be quickly and easily rescaled to whatever is needed. Some programs don't even have real measurements, 1 unit is simply one unit.

    If you're using a specific engine you may want to check to see what the export/import scale is like. If you're going prints or something that involves simulation then you may want to model things with your chosen measurement in mind.
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  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    i work in 'lilifeet' ie lillipution units. they are a bit smaller than the standard units, but seriously I work generally in cm, but worked on a job on some advertising company where they were working in inches and no one mentioned this fact, chaos ensued.
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  • Meteora
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    Meteora polycounter lvl 8
    I set up the units to be equal to one UU, Unreal Unit. Apparently I'm told in Maya unit that's already one UU and in Max it'll just be generic unit, but then again I keep getting conflicting answers.
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  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    1cm in Maya equals 1 Unreal Unit since the UDK importer convert the units to have 1 = 1 (even if 1 UU equals 0.75 inches/2 cm).

    Personally I work in centimeter or sometimes in meters. The big reason is that it's what the engine I'm working on use and also what units I'm used to in real-life. Also Maya works better in centimeters (some tools are a bit buggy in meters for example).

    Use whatever units that suits you and especially your target engine. The rest doesn't mater. The scale is defined by the player/point of view after all.
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  • Racer445
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    Racer445 polycounter lvl 12
    almost every engine i've needed to work in uses meters, so my max is set to metric unless the client specifically requests something else.
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  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    beard-seconds, an average beard grows around 10 nanometers a second, thats my base unit, it might be small but it is precise.


    centimetrs or meters, dependent on the client
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  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    Units in 3d don't matter unless you work by some weird cult units where 3.7658 cultonauts = 1meter.

    Work in meters, divide by 10 for cm, same concept for feet, but maybe metric vs imperial (or binary) has some deciding to do, but there is usually some conversion that is close enough.
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  • peanut™
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    peanut™ polycounter lvl 19
    A simple question like this and you'll get 400 answers :D
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  • acitone
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    acitone
    Oh ok so it doesn't really matter and I should pay attention to the what the game engine uses. Cool.
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