I am not 100 precent sure on what I should be doing, Should I build the entire level in maya and then .fbx export the entire thing? or should I build it in unreal engine? Thanks for your time.
Engines triangulate everything during import. Therefore its better to triangulate by hand to get the same triangulation as in engine. Or import and export the asset. You need this for clean normalmaps.
There are Q2 engine mods that bring it up to a better level, from what I understand Q2E is an attempt to give those engines gamedata that reaches modern levels as well.
saw the ready at dawn engine at the GDC stream... maybe interesting cause the engine is built into maya... http://area.autodesk.com/gdc/ondemand8 http://engine.readyatdawn.com/home/Welcome/Welcome.html
Awesome detail on the reverse of the pod around the engine parts, I feel like the front could use some of that loving too! Is that top shot in engine? Looks great.
Why are you using an old engine that doesn't render or run very well? There's a lot of free engines out there that would instantly make your game look better.
Some engines don't support 1024x512. If you're just making stuff for your portfolio I wouldn't worry. If you're making assets for an engine in mind then I'd check.
its the art anyway not the engine.. you could do that in another engine. But it sure is good usage of source! Whats sweet about source is all the dynamic cubemap stuff.
pretty much any recent engine souts your needs but for preview issues, using c# with xna should work, even tough its a framework and not really an engine
People reverse engineer entire mmo servers, so this is not something too complicated. but if it takes a week instead of a day to reverse-engineer it, then thats a win for the companies I guess.