how to make a UT4 model - for dummies

[Geir]

I have not used the unreal editor.
I want to make a character model for UT4.
can you help me?

[Parkar]

here is few tutorials for ut2003. Making ut2004 models works the same. A little warning, if you have never made a character model for any game it might seam a bit daunting to say the least. Don't excpect to have a fully animated character in the game in a few hours.

http://www.planetquake.com/polycount...utorials.shtml

[ProMapper]

Hi, Modelling is like a driving lesson....you know how to get it moving but not to control it....

If I was you I'd map a bit first to get used to architecture/unit size and then try Maya that's with UT2004. Wiki, I think, give modelling tuts but the tuts are BIG and it will take you months of learning to get modelling right.

LoL, I not say 'don't model' but learn other aspects of UT editing first and you should get an understanding of how it all fits together.

If you want to make SP (single-player) with new models try using the Pawns in the actor list to get started (Skaarj one's). You have to 'tag' them to a script (in actor list) to keep em where you place them (as if you don't, they become Bots and start on the PlayerStarts).

I know, complicated.....but work at UNRed3.0 and you'll get it.

[gungriffon geona]

Okay, so say I modelled a character in another program then exported it into .3DS and imported it into Maya. that would cut about how much of the work out? (ie how long it would take to get it ready for animating.) and considering the model is not directly connected in places (or anywhere for that matter), would it be required for all the polys to be connected in some way?

The reason I ask has to do with a project to get Vectorman into a few games as a plug-in model. The model itself is quite low poly (1190 polys overall) and needs a UV map and skin, but overall is it possible?

[Parkar]

Yes it's possible. You have lots of work left to do before it is in game though.

It needs uv map as you said, then it needs to be rigged (ie attached to a skeleton) and finally animated if you did not use one of the standard skeletons which I would say is the way to go with that model. You might need to adjust a few things to make it fit the skeleton you choose but not buy much I think.

[gungriffon geona]

So making the actual model is the easy part.

One other thing: is it possible to have "cel shaded" models in the game? I've seen cel shaded levels before, so it should work, right? (I understand it could make the job more complex, but I simply want to know if it's possible.) If I'm not mistaken, if I did do that it would double the poly count, correct?

[Parkar]

Depends on how you do it, I have seen a model that uses a material to create the lines instead of doubling the polygons and invert them. Can't remember for sure which model it was but I think it was a transformer or similar robot.

[gamejunkie]

Hmm, not a bad model. I loved Vectorman and Vectorman 2 for Genesis

[PlayfulPuppy]

gungriffon geona said:
One other thing: is it possible to have "cel shaded" models in the game? I've seen cel shaded levels before, so it should work, right? (I understand it could make the job more complex, but I simply want to know if it's possible.) If I'm not mistaken, if I did do that it would double the poly count, correct?

It's possible to do this in a LOT of engines, just using a few quick-tricks.

First of all, getting the trademark thick-black outline is easy. Just make a copy of your model and expand it a bit (Using the 'Push' modifier in 3DS-MAX will do it). Now go in and flip the normals. Turn on back-face culling (Or disable 2-sided in the material), set the color to black and bingo! Instant outline.

The solid-color bands are a little harder to do (And even harder to get right). I'm not entirely sure how you'd get it to work in the Unreal engine, but the basics of it are to create a texture that has the colors you require in thick, diagonal bands. Then you need to apply it as a spherical map (Sometimes called an envionment map or a reflection map, in MAX you'd use the reflection channel of the material).

This *should* give you a nice, cel-shaded looking character, although note that the solid-shading technique wont be affected by lights around the character, you need to do some vertex-shader magic with the UV coordinates to get that kind of effect.

[jimbob]

PlayfulPuppy said:

It's possible to do this in a LOT of engines, just using a few quick-tricks.

First of all, getting the trademark thick-black outline is easy. Just make a copy of your model and expand it a bit (Using the 'Push' modifier in 3DS-MAX will do it). Now go in and flip the normals. Turn on back-face culling (Or disable 2-sided in the material), set the color to black and bingo! Instant outline.

The solid-color bands are a little harder to do (And even harder to get right). I'm not entirely sure how you'd get it to work in the Unreal engine, but the basics of it are to create a texture that has the colors you require in thick, diagonal bands. Then you need to apply it as a spherical map (Sometimes called an envionment map or a reflection map, in MAX you'd use the reflection channel of the material).

This *should* give you a nice, cel-shaded looking character, although note that the solid-shading technique wont be affected by lights around the character, you need to do some vertex-shader magic with the UV coordinates to get that kind of effect.

there is a cell shader shader in the ut2k4 engine, just open the "x_aw_celltest" package and see.

[gungriffon geona]

well, I managed to get together a UVmap. though I have to say it's quite the confusing thing because alot of it looks the same because the model is mostly spheres. now I have to find someone who knows a thing or two about texturing stuff.

[gungriffon geona]

I've built another model, but with this one I have someone who's volunteered to rig and animate it IF I can get a skin for it. this means I'm looking for a texture artist that can help me.
I have a pair of UV maps ready for skinning, and the finished 3DS file. If anyone wants to help, send me a private message.

[Co11]

JimBob. I've learned the Cell Shader isn't all that useful for characters. It's not your typical "XIII" shader.

I have pretty much memorized how to import characters into the game, and let me tell you. it's a pain. As my professor once described it. It's a clusterf@ck.

You used to have to use a program called Upaint to bring it in, and that was a huge mess, but was nice for creating portraits for the character and everything. Now adays you can just bring him in as the model and your textures bit by bit.

Oh yeah, with Upaint you could only use 2 textures - one for the body and one for the head.

Now you can use as many as you need. But probably only need to have 3 or 4 textures max.

As for poly counts, try to keep it in and around 3k and less triangulated. That's not a solid number, so if you see 4k poly counts working ok, I wouldn't be too surprised.

With Unreal 3 engine, you should be able to hit in about 10k poly counts with normal mapping that would emulate 100k poly characters. You can do this with the source engine as well. In fact, those characters all have the Zbrush treatment. Very subtle though.

[Kristian Joensen]

"With Unreal 3 engine, you should be able to hit in about 10k poly counts with normal mapping that would emulate 100k poly characters."

Well the actual specs are:

"Characters

For every major character and static mesh asset, we build two versions of the geometry: a renderable mesh with unique UV coordinates, and a detail mesh containing only geometry. We run the two meshes through the Unreal Engine 3 preprocessing tool and generate a high-res normal map for the renderable mesh, based on analyzing all of the geometry in the detail mesh.

* Renderable Mesh: We build renderable meshes with 3,000-12,000 triangles, based on the expectation of 5-20 visible characters in a game scene.
* Detail Mesh: We build 1-8 million triangle detail meshes for typical characters. This is quite sufficient for generating 1-2 normal maps of resolution 2048x2048 per character.
* Bones: The highest LOD version of our characters typically have 100-200 bones, and include articulated faces, hands, and fingers.

Normal Maps & Texture maps
We are authoring most character and world normal maps and texture maps at 2048x2048 resolution. We feel this is a good target for games running on mid-range PC's in the 2006 timeframe. Next-generation consoles may require reducing texture resolution by 2X, and low-end PC's up to 4X, depending on texture count and scene complexity.

Environments
Typical environments contain 1000-5000 total renderable objects, including static meshes and skeletal meshes. For reasonable performance on current 3D cards, we aim to keep the number of visible objects in any given scene to 300-1000 visible objects. Our larger scenes typically peak at 500,000 to 1,500,000 rendered triangles.

Lights
There are no hardcoded limits on light counts, but for performance we try to limit the number of large-radius lights affecting large scenes to 2-5, as each light/object interaction pair is costly due to the engine's high-precision per-pixel lighting and shadowing pipeline. Low-radius lights used for highlights and detail lighting on specific objects are significantly less costly than lights affecting the full scene."

[Denz]

I had a question about exporting your model to unreal from maya. So i'm following the steps of this tutorial: http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Ma...utorial_Part_5
I have the UT2K4 plugin.

I'm at the part where you have to enable the UT2K4 plugin, i do it, but it does not launch unrealed.

"First save the TinCanMan file and use File>New to clear the workspace. Use Window>Settings/Preferences>Plug-in Manager to open the Plug-in Manager. Check the box next to unEditor.mll. UnrealEd should open as the plug-in loads. (The reason for the File>New before loading the plug-in is that I've repeatedly had Maya PLE & UEd crash if a scene of any complexity is open when loading unEditor.mll, but it always works OK if I do File>New first.)"

[jimbob]

be sure to use the right plugin version for maya, i use maya 8.5 from time to time, but there is no unreal exporter for it yet. and older versions dont work.

i`d use ActorX to export unreal meshes. its an official epic plugin.

[Denz]

Well i use the plugins for maya 7 ple which is the one i have.

Well when i try the command UnrealEd i get this message feedback: Error: MayaUnrealEd: This command requires at least one flag

What is it?

[jimbob]

er.. not exactly sure what you mean, to start the ActorX plugin you need to type

"axmesh" in the MEL command line within maya 7, after that, you can import the mesh into unrealed.

the "Axmain" and "Axanim" are used for animations and stuff.

[Denz]

Well i tried that already, but it's not for maya ple.

The probleme is that when you loadup the Unreal tournament plugin, unreal ed should launch up, then you use a command and it automatically export and all.