Maya Weapon Last Step

[legacy-DeadPool]

hi,
i just finished making a gun, i made a texture using a uv map (after some major efforts)

i need to know how to apply the uv map i just made to the model in Maya 4.5!!! Its most likley really simple i just can't work out how to do it!!!

thanks for looking
-Dan-

[legacy-DeadPool]

anyone?

[legacy-pigpen]

Bring up your hypershade, which is your shader/material editor.
Window>rendering editors> hypershade

Then hit F1 to read about creating textures and applying image bitmaps to textures using the file 2d texture type.

Or go here and watch a video on how to do it. Find the video "Static Mesh Workflow (Maya to Unreal Ed)" under the UT2003 Game Design Issue 2 section. He talks about the hypershade about 3/5 of the way in the video.

http://sv2.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/uunr_vtmlist.php?c=13

[legacy-DeadPool]

thanks for the reply pigpen!
my guns are all now fully textured and look great (well great for me anyway:D)

i now need to export them!i watched ther VTM you pointed out and says about the mel script you have to write in. but i'm using maya 4.5 so it doesn't have the plug-in buzz is using!!!

I thought that i may have to use the ActorX plug-in, but when i attempt to use it i get this warning:

No valid skin triangles digested (mesh may lack proper mapping or valid linkups)

I'm not sure if i'm even going about it the right way

thanks for looking
any help would be appreciated

[legacy-pigpen]

Don't worry about the mel script they talk about...that's for people that want to enhance exporting when using the uneditor.mll plugin (which came with Maya 4.0 PLE).

"No valid skin triangles digested" - that error means you have no geometry that is "skinned" (smooth bound or parented) to any joints, so there is nothing to export, like when you export character models that are bound to skeletons. By default, actorX looks to export skinned geometry. You can change this setting to all textured geometry instead which will export only geometry that is textured, regardless if they have bones or not.
Read this to learn more:
http://udn.epicgames.com/pub/Content/ActorXMayaTutorial/

To change this setting, you need to type: axoptions;
THis will bring up your setting dialog box.

So in that way you can export your weapon or any other meshes that don't have bones but just textures.

HOWEVER...if you use weapons that don't have bones in them, you won't get muzzle flashes and other effects. Also you need bones if you plan to animate your weapon. 1st player and 3rd person view weapon models have atleast two bones...often called "Weapon", which connects the weapon to the "weapon_bone" (inside the palm) in the character model, and another bone called "tip" which is where the muzzle flash effect emanates. The only weapon meshes that don't use bones, are the weaponpickup meshes, that you pickup in the game...these are static meshes.

The shockrifle uses a "Tip" and "Weapon" bone, however the other weapons, I've noticed, use different names, like "muzzle_flash", "tip2" etc. Ultimately It doesn't really matter what you call it since you change alter this in the code or socket info(bone name alias) if you know what you are doing... Here's a pic of the proper bone placement (use the joint tool in maya to setup your bones/joints).
http://sv2.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/attachment.php?s=&postid=304567
Ignore the text in the picture that talks about linking...that is for 3dsmax user. After you make your bones and name them appropriately, what you want to do in maya is parent (which is called linking in 3dsmax), your weapon mesh to your bones. Select your joints, then shift select your weapon mesh, then press "P" to parent. Now you're ready to export.

Its really quite a process to getting a weapon in the game. The next steps involve coding once you get your weapon in unrealED. You should do a search for weapons in this forum and unscripting forum for more info. Here's a good link on importing and altering the sciprts to show your custom weapons:
http://gamestudies.cdis.org/%7Ejgiles/
Check lesson 21 and 24.

Also Angel Mapper has a good coding tutorial on the files needed to alter to make custom weapons. http://www.unrealops.com/tutorials-coding1.htm

FInally be sure to check out the unreal scripting VTMs on http://sv2.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/uunr_vtmlist.php?c=13
This explains how to use to compile scripts and code simple stuff.

[legacy-DeadPool]

my gun is now in unreal, textured and fires! finally!!!!
thanks for the help pigpen!

one last question ( there always is :rolleyes: )

In the pickup part of the gun you have to assign a static mesh of the gun, which is what you see and pickup.

How do i export a static mesh from Maya 4.5? i need to get the right file type! i know how to script it in, i just don't know how to export it!

thanks for looking

[legacy-pigpen]

in maya type:

axmesh;

That'll let you export your model as an .ase file for static meshes.

[legacy-DeadPool]

:up:hi,thanks for the reply:up:
i now have a number of guns made, textured and coded:)

when i import my gun model into UnRealED (in the animation section) the guns appears in the wrong postition, poiting upwards etc. i know i can edit these with the Mesh options in UnRealED but is there anyway that i can ensure that it is in the proper postion to begin with, because i find its a long trail and error method to get it into the right place. I'm just looking to save time

also whats the max amount of polys i should use when making a gun?

thanks for looking
-Dan-

[legacy-pigpen]

As for weapon polycounts...it depends ofcourse on which model and thier aren't any strict rules. I hear 1000 to 2000 is ok for 1st person perspective. You can save polycount by deleting any faces that won't be seen in the 1st person view.

3rd person weapons: up to 600 polys.

Just take a look at the number of faces in the animation & staticmesh browser for the weapons for an idea of the ingame models' face counts

As far as weapon rotation...did you look at the http://gamestudies.cdis.org/%7Ejgiles/ website? He talks about orienting in first person view in lesson 24.

As far as 3rd person view...here's pasted text that I wrote in a post on the 3dbuzz unreal 2k3 forums:

"In any case, to change the rotation of your weapon go to your Animation browser inside UnrealEd, load up your appropriate weapon mesh (ie. your 3rd person weapon mesh) so you can see it in the viewer. Then adjust the rotation settings which can be found in the right hand side "mesh" tab, expand the section called "mesh" and then expand the "rotation" list. There you'll see "pitch", "roll", and "yaw" settings. Experiment there by entering values. I think increments of 16384 = 90 degrees, so then 32768 for 180 degrees, etc. It's weird orientation system. Also try entering negative values, like -16384.

3rd person weapon meshes need to be upside down and pointing away, for them to properly show up in the right direction when playing in the game. Weird, but true.

By the way, if you don't see any changes happen to your mesh in the viewer, make sure you have "continuousUpdate" set to "true" in the attach section.

To make sure your changes are permanent and are seen in-game, make sure you save."

[legacy-[HJ]-RedRaven]

Thanks guys, this has been of great help to me too.

I too am using Maya Unlimited 4.5, and couldn't figure out why the UnEditor.mll script wasn't working :)

All fixed now, cheers!

[legacy-pigpen]

Glad this thread is helping others. Getting weapons in the game can be a pain the first time through.

BTW, [HJ]-RedRaven, I saw your sig. Your computer rig must sound pretty awesome. Yamaha amp with bose speakers...suh-weet.

[legacy-[HJ]-RedRaven]

Hehe problem is, most of the time I have to play with headphones...the house is rarely empty so I don't get to use my speakers that often lol

Does sound great though!

[legacy-DeadPool]

Hey again,
i've looked at the tutorials you suggested and understand the way to get the gun into the level and positioned, but i need some help with 1st person view

but my gun always seems to be places way off screen and i'm having trouble getting it onto the screen!

heres a picture of how i have the gun postioned when i've crated it in maya, before the export!
http://www.geocities.com/tftrades/Screen.jpg
what postion should i but it in before rotation, and also what about the size?????

thanks for looking

[legacy-DeadPool]

???Anyone???

[legacy-[HJ]-RedRaven]

I think you can specify an offset somewhere...maybe under the player view gun mesh's display properties?

I haven't got this far yet either, so its just a guess.

Maybe when you export your mesh, make sure its centred on the origin in Maya or 3DS Max.

[legacy-kizza]

I know it's been a while since the last post but I'm having the same problem. "No valid skin triangles digested"
My mesh is the parent, tip and weapon jopints are children under that.
I'm new to Maya this year and so far my limited expertise is in character animation but I've taken to modelling in Wings3D and the rest in Maya and I'm now working on a uni assignment where I have to make the weapons for a MOD.
Can anyone help me? I just can't seem to export out my psk. Is there something special about attaching the joints to the mesh?
I downloaded a file from here:
http://udn.epicgames.com/pub/Content/ExportingUT2003ModelsWithMaya/#Part_2_Exporting_from_Maya
down the very bottom of the page there is a Maya rig and when I opened it I found the mesh wasn't even parented to the joints and it exported as a psk without any problems. Ahhh!