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Unreal 3 Tutorials

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Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
Hey guys and gals. I know there isn't too many tutorials out there that cover roboblitz and Unreal 3 so I'm gonna try to share what I know with you guys.

I just did some changes to my site and added a tutorials section and finished my first tutorial on the basics of getting your stuff into Unreal 3.


Happy reading.
http://www.artbyjessemoody.com

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  • Nate Broach
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    Nate Broach polycounter lvl 17
    Sweet man, that'll save me some time of figuring it out. Thanks
  • Mongrelman
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    Mongrelman polycounter lvl 18
    Much appreciated, looking forward to more smile.gif
  • poopinmymouth
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    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    New tutorials are always appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to do this. I'd suggest figuring out a way to make the text correspond to the images better. Right now you have some colored areas of the images, but then no colored text. Rather than have to read the entire paragraph to figure out what to do for that colored area, either color the text to match the image, or place a number next to both the corresponding text, and the area of the image in question. Similar to this, http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/normal_workflow/normal_04.jpg

    poop.gif
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    No problem guys. Glad I could give something back to help out the community.

    Ben: Yeah I am gonna fix that sometime today or tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback.
  • diminished_Self
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    diminished_Self polycounter lvl 12
    whoa there partner!

    importmesh2.jpg

    39 COLLISION MESHES!!! dude...a good rule of thumb on collision mesh for unreal is keep it under five primitives and as simple as possible. yours is WAY to complex, you dont need to have the collision completely engulf every part of your model. its ok for stuff to stick out slightly, etc.

    also on this front, youve set your collsion up in a way so that the engine has to divide it for you. any mesh that overlaps another mesh will be automatically divided into new pieces of collision by the editor, and when that happens its never good. also, make sure your collision is as simple as possible, not only does this make for better engine performance but it will also be easier on you to create. if your using max it has a "convexity test" tool that checks a mesh to see if its convex or concave. all your collision needs to be convex or UE will divide it for you and thats not good. collision doesnt need to all be one mesh as well, but i think thats just a personal preference issue.

    EDIT: also collision is literally just for the player model, as UE calculates collision for projectiles from the original model itself (i believe, correct me if im wrong) so i would loose the collision for the small stuff on there, ie the handles and jack stand, and bring that main box all the way down to the ground, and adjust the bottom vertices to mostly surround the wheels and jack hookup. a player will never be able to climb underneath it so you dont need to worry about having realistic collision there. actually, its quicker for me to just mock it up:

    sample_COLLISION.gif

    if you have any questions feel free to hit me up dude.
  • warby
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    warby polycounter lvl 18
    wait collision meshes in u3 will csg into each other if they intersect ???? THAT IS RETARDED (if true)... i really hope your mistaken there ...
  • cgmonkey
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    cgmonkey polycounter lvl 18
    You don't write what editor you use and where you get it. It might aswell be an in-house proprietary tool. Always start off listing what kind of tools you will need and how to get them.

    Never assume that everyone knows what you know.
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    no, but for those that actually have them on studio might find this very usefull.
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    [ QUOTE ]
    whoa there partner!

    39 COLLISION MESHES!!! dude...a good rule of thumb on collision mesh for unreal is keep it under five primitives and as simple as possible. yours is WAY to complex, you dont need to have the collision completely engulf every part of your model. its ok for stuff to stick out slightly, etc.

    also on this front, youve set your collsion up in a way so that the engine has to divide it for you. any mesh that overlaps another mesh will be automatically divided into new pieces of collision by the editor, and when that happens its never good. also, make sure your collision is as simple as possible, not only does this make for better engine performance but it will also be easier on you to create. if your using max it has a "convexity test" tool that checks a mesh to see if its convex or concave. all your collision needs to be convex or UE will divide it for you and thats not good. collision doesnt need to all be one mesh as well, but i think thats just a personal preference issue.

    EDIT: also collision is literally just for the player model, as UE calculates collision for projectiles from the original model itself (i believe, correct me if im wrong) so i would loose the collision for the small stuff on there, ie the handles and jack stand, and bring that main box all the way down to the ground, and adjust the bottom vertices to mostly surround the wheels and jack hookup. a player will never be able to climb underneath it so you dont need to worry about having realistic collision there. actually, its quicker for me to just mock it up:

    sample_COLLISION.gif

    if you have any questions feel free to hit me up dude.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    As I said this wasn't a tutorial on making collision meshes so it's not optimized for that. It was just something really quick i put in to just show the naming conventions.

    I am working on a series of tutorials and one of them will cover the ins and outs for UE3.

    You are right about projectiles though. It's handled by the mesh geometry / materials.
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    [ QUOTE ]
    You don't write what editor you use and where you get it. It might aswell be an in-house proprietary tool. Always start off listing what kind of tools you will need and how to get them.

    Never assume that everyone knows what you know.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Not sure I know what you mean here. List the tools I'm using? I mention both 3ds Max and Unreal 3 engine in the first line of the tutorial.

    This tutorial will cover the basics on how to export a model from 3ds Max and import it into Unreal 3. Import your textures and create a material and apply it to your mesh.

    As far as how to get Unreal 3 the only way you can get it is to work at a studio that is using it or purchase the roboblitz editor.
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    I made a few changes to try and clean it up a bit and make it a bit easier to follow. Hope this helps.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    it helps a lot, i managed to get a pre-posed character into the editor, so when i've finished him up, and figure out all the lighting and things within the editor (using roboblitz) i'll be able to pimp some sexy =]
  • Jahmez
    Not a bad tutorial there. Another thing you might want to add is that, mappers are also allowed to name their packages the same as the map name. If it is the same, then the meshes etc all get saved in the map. It makes it easier for distribution, but it sucks when you have several maps that all use the same resource.
  • diminished_Self
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    diminished_Self polycounter lvl 12
    [ QUOTE ]
    wait collision meshes in u3 will csg into each other if they intersect ???? THAT IS RETARDED (if true)... i really hope your mistaken there ...

    [/ QUOTE ]

    im not sure what you mean by csg, but heres a visual example of the retardedness im talking about.

    heres a mesh with its collision set up in such a way that the wheel collision boxes intersect slightly with the main body collision:

    collision_BAD_SETUP.gif

    and heres what it looks like imported into unreal:

    collision_BAD_RESULT.gif

    notice the strange missing pieces of collision and how the engine is attempting to calculate what you wanted there, but it just really doesnt seem to work out so well. it jumps from 5 primitive collision boxes to 28?!?! very strange.

    the work around weve been using is to place small gaps in the collision, so small that a player would never notice them or get stuck in them, but just large enough so that it physically separates the collision mesh pieces:

    collision_GOOD_SETUP.gif

    and weve been getting correct results that way.

    collision_GOOD_RESULT.gif

    very strange but every engine has its quirks.
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    that is retarded :| but great way to avoid it wink.gif
  • Sean McBride
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    Sean McBride polycounter lvl 18
    oh wow, i guess we are allowed to write tutorials as long as we dont show assets from UT3 or gears huh... i would have done some character pipe tutorials by now if i knew that. laugh.gif
  • Ferg
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    Ferg polycounter lvl 17
    can I get a character animation tutorial that covers the process of animating a rigged character, importing those animations, and setting that model/anim as the player char?

    In return, I can write a tutorial on many a thing... such as rigging a character in max, getting it to import and setting up the collision and physics/ragdoll settings. I can also write up a quickie on setting up animated textures within the material editor, and other neat material tricks to give your model that extra dose of zazz. Anyone interested in any of those?
  • D4V1DC
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    D4V1DC polycounter lvl 18
    I want to leech those tutorials and want to learn more while doing it, com'on give into the pressure:).

    Hook Ferg up with his request someone please and post it as well wink.gif. laugh.gif

    Btw, Thanx Jesse for this informative tut.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    [ QUOTE ]
    oh wow, i guess we are allowed to write tutorials as long as we dont show assets from UT3 or gears huh... i would have done some character pipe tutorials by now if i knew that. laugh.gif

    [/ QUOTE ]

    GET ON IT D:
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    Ferg: I haven't really had to deal with the Character side of things so I won't be able to help on that end. I will ask around though and try to get some details on it.

    I think I have a rig made for a character for one of the games I'm working on somewhere in the depth of my files.

    I am trying to focus most of my tutorials on importing, material editor, collision mesh, environment pipelines, and later I will be expanding into the editor and level design stuff with lighting, paths, etc.
  • madmenno
    Ok call me stupid but the game sin't out yet and the need for tutorials is increasing? Can you already expirement with the engine? How do i get it? I loved working with UT2K4 have looking forward to this day.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    Ok call me stupid but the game sin't out yet and the need for tutorials is increasing? Can you already expirement with the engine? How do i get it? I loved working with UT2K4 have looking forward to this day.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Yup, just get a hold of Roboblitz

    I'm going to mess around with it during my lunch break at work since my home computer can't run it.
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    i think roboblitz engine isnt "the real thing" someone correct me if im wrong please.
  • madmenno
    Yeah tell me to plz, befor i buy it.... Is there a SDK included in the trial? Is it the same? I'v looked around quickly to buy the game but no stores here in Holland sell them.
  • fritz
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    fritz polycounter lvl 18
    sorry ferg...can't help you there. however material tuts would be awesome. searching the udn for help is a pain in the rump.
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    Roboblitz is a "modified" version of UE3. You can import your models, create materials, etc and make levels for roboblitz. From what I have heard you can even import characters with some of the mods out there.

    I had Roboblitz before getting UE3 for work. I used it and it was great for what I wanted to do and you can get familiar with the engine and how things work months before the full editor is released.
  • warby
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    warby polycounter lvl 18
    yes what you show there on the shots is csg

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_solid_geometry

    not perfectly explained but what the hell smile.gif

    yeah no engine without it quirks
  • Lee3dee
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    Lee3dee polycounter lvl 18
    in roboblitz defense, it had no trouble with my running water material over stones and concrete today laugh.gif

    rainWaterMat.jpg
  • Sean McBride
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    Sean McBride polycounter lvl 18
    Awesome, that is infact a great way to get familure with the engine. The material editor looks like the one we have at work. Does Vegas not have an editor out yet? I know that used UE3 and its been out for a while.
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