Any Questions? Experienced Unreal Person

[Gammaray489]

Hey All!

Exciting to see Unreal Engine 3.5 released to the masses :)

Anyone need help? I have been using the engine for over a year and am pretty knowledgable about the Engine (Obviously I have much to learn myself), if anyone needs help or has a technical question feel free to ask!

-Gamma

[crazyfingers]

Hey Gammaray, thanks for the support!

Sorry for such a general question, but I'm working on a scene for an environmental art challenge and pure unbridled top end graphics are required for still shots. What sort of tweaks can we make in the UDK that we couldn't make in the retail editor to make a scene look flat out awesome? I'm certainly excited about global lighting!

[ambershee]

It's mostly on the lighting front; global illumination, ambient occlusion and lit particles are all nice toys to play with. You can also experiment with fluid surfaces :)

[Repent_]

yeah I would love to hear more about the lighting tools .

[Gammaray489]

Glad to see alot of people interested in Lighting, the Possibilities for the lighting is exciting, I am actively trying to figure it out as I speak, will post some screens if I can crack into it and get it looking great.

[Gammaray489]

Hey Gammaray, thanks for the support!

Sorry for such a general question, but I'm working on a scene for an environmental art challenge and pure unbridled top end graphics are required for still shots. What sort of tweaks can we make in the UDK that we couldn't make in the retail editor to make a scene look flat out awesome? I'm certainly excited about global lighting!

Try using the Directional Lights located in in the Content Browser under Actor Class, then look for the lights section. Tweaking the brightness and other factors can help to make it look really well lite, try loading up some of the sample maps for some awsome Lighting Epic has provided, I am learning from those, trying to see what they did exactly.

EDIT: Also try applying a Material to a Static mesh by dragging the material onto the surface of the Mesh thats another awsome new feature!

[crazyfingers]

Cool beans, thanks for the heads up :)

[micahpharoh]

how do I get my viewports to stay the same size when I exit out and get back in? It's not working at all for me, and i don't like the default sizes at all.

[crazyfingers]

Minor annoyance here... I can't select 2d planes that i've put translucent materials on. Before it was annoying i could only select on the side that the normals were facing on, now i can't select them at all, unless i get tricky and go through the browser.

[micahpharoh]

Same here. And I hate that you can't select BSP surfaces anymore.

[VorLoN]

Minor annoyance here... I can't select 2d planes that i've put translucent materials on. Before it was annoying i could only select on the side that the normals were facing on, now i can't select them at all, unless i get tricky and go through the browser.

In the top toolbar you'll find a button named Allow Translucent Selection, check it out if it does the trick for you.

[hugepanticpeanut]

How do I know how high to make a doorway and say a chair? Does the UDK use metric, or what are the messurments in?

[Sir_Brizz]

Just use the Play In Editor feature to check scale. On common trick is to have boxes that are a certain comparable unit to your player scale and use those to check that. I think technically 1uu=1in in UT Demo, not sure about vertically though.

[hugepanticpeanut]

Thanx m8 I'll do some tests to check whats what

[NightClucker]

Minor annoyance here... I can't select 2d planes that i've put translucent materials on. Before it was annoying i could only select on the side that the normals were facing on, now i can't select them at all, unless i get tricky and go through the browser.

At the top tool bar in the editor that looks like two planes of glass, labeled as "Allow Translucent Select". If you press this then you will be able to select those translucent surfaces. It is off by default because alot of people run into trouble when they try to select a certain object but forget that a translucent object is in the way and end up selecting the wrong one.

[NightClucker]

Just use the Play In Editor feature to check scale. On common trick is to have boxes that are a certain comparable unit to your player scale and use those to check that. I think technically 1uu=1in in UT Demo, not sure about vertically though.

You can also drop in a skeletal mesh (such as "SkeletalMesh'CH_IronGuard_Male.Mesh.SK_CH_IronGuar d_MaleA'") throughout your level. This will make it easier to see how big your doorways and chairs need to be without having to go through PIE all the time. Remember to make the doorways a tad a bigger than a real life door as those would look small when in game.

[Daniel Vogel]

I can't select 2d planes that i've put translucent materials on.
There is a button/ setting that determines whether translucency is selectable or not. Let me know if you can't find it and I'll dig a bit.

[hugepanticpeanut]

Thank you so much Vogel!

If making "Tiles" in 3dstudio or something like that, how do I know what size to use there so they dont become huge in the editor?

[G0DLIKE]

Thank you Gammaray, you may try to answer to the thread I opened :D

[Fartuess]

I have problem with compability with Files saving what i created in Speed Tree modeler. I can't find ther way how to save tree as .srt . I can only save in .spm .

I would be gratefull if you can help me with solving this problem :)
_______________
I've just found answer - SpeedTree Compiler :D

[parkar]

Thank you so much Vogel!

If making "Tiles" in 3dstudio or something like that, how do I know what size to use there so they dont become huge in the editor?

1 generic unit in 3dsmax = 1 UU. You can also make palceholders in ued and export those from unrealed to obj. Then import those to the 3d application.

[hugepanticpeanut]

Thanx parkar!

[Delikatessen]

This may seem like a dumb question, but how does one actually open the speedtree modeler? I found the tutorial for importing, but I can't find how to open the actual modeler

[Dregoloth]

Hey! it's really nice to see a thread like this started up!
do you know how to make my seams lees obviouse in unreal? they look fine in other
apps, but when I input it to unreal I get this
http://i920.photobucket.com/albums/ad45/dregoloth/problems/uvissue.png

the object is smooth shaded, and I haven't had this issue on any other flat shaded model

is this really unavoidable in unreal?

[eurosat7]

This may seem like a dumb question, but how does one actually open the speedtree modeler? I found the tutorial for importing, but I can't find how to open the actual modeler

same here.

[Dregoloth]

This may seem like a dumb question, but how does one actually open the speedtree modeler? I found the tutorial for importing, but I can't find how to open the actual modeler

same here.
to get to the editor, you go to the install directory for udk, go to binaries, and it should be easy to find from there.
(the easiest way to get to the install directory is to right click on the UDK icon on you're desktop or wherever you keep and click on open file location)