Few things about export plugs and texture formats

[Plastik]

1. I hope some day Epic will make automatic export plugin for 3d software. Cuz process like:

- export mesh from 3d software
- import mesh to ued
- import texture to ued
- create material
- assign texture to material
- import normal map
- assign normal map to material
- import specular map
- assign it to material
- assign material to mesh
- add collisions to mesh

This is really very annoying and it takes too much time that i can spend while modeling something new. (As example) I can do it with a few mouse clicks in SB2 + XSI:

- Create Export Node
- Drug`n`drop object to export node
- Convert materials
- Add physical proxy (2 clicks)
- Export geometry
- Export materials

And voila - my object if fully texturized with all collisions right in the game. it takes about 5-10 seconds.

2. And another thing that i dont like in UDK is TGA and BMP texture format.

For example - 2048x2048x24:

JPG: ~2,6Mb
DDS: 2,7Mb (Most of engines)
BMP: 12,2Mb (UE3)
TGA: 12,6Mb (UE3)

Just imagine if you are trying to import about 30 textures at once (~378Mb) :eek: As i know this is a very popular cause of crash in UeD. Is there any chance for DDS support?

[Denny]

Isn't the 12,6Mb size the uncooked version of the textures?

[Plastik]

Isn't the 12,6Mb size the uncooked version of the textures?

You have TGA (12,6Mb) on your HDD but after importing to UeD it will be coverted to DDS (as i understand).

[Xendance]

You can import even .psd files I think. Or then I must have been dreaming.
But yea, the editor will convert them to DXT 1/3/5 depending on the import options. I think you can change the format later too.

[Plastik]

You can import even .psd files I think. Or then I must have been dreaming.
But yea, the editor will convert them to DXT 1/3/5 depending on the import options. I think you can change the format later too.

For example: You have 100 textures (DDS, 2048x2048x24). Each texture size about 3Mb (100 textures = 300Mb). For using with UDK you must convert em all to TGA and each texture size will be 12,7Mb (100 textures = 1270Mb).

[rd1]

> I hope some day Epic will make automatic export plugin for 3d software.

I agree such a thing would be nice. But, expecting Epic to do everything and give it away for free is a bit selfish.

Instead why not figure out how to build one yourself, and similarly give to the community rather than just asking for more goodies?

[djlithium]

I would really love to see some Lightwave 3D import plug-ins. Lightwave is so good at surface baking and GI as well as many other things. I know I am not alone on this. Please Epic! Lightwave support!

[Brexer]

Lets all try to remember the UDK isnt even out of beta yet, lets get that working 100% first :P

And then.... you make plugins for Maya *waves arms around* :)

[Tom Shannon]

For example: You have 100 textures (DDS, 2048x2048x24). Each texture size about 3Mb (100 textures = 300Mb). For using with UDK you must convert em all to TGA and each texture size will be 12,7Mb (100 textures = 1270Mb).

1) If you don't have your textures as uncompressed formats to begin with (psd, tga, etc.), you should really consider it.

2) You'd have to spend the time converting the textures to DDS from your uncompressed source using Photoshop or the command-line tools anyways. The crashing is a pain, but I can handle importing a few at a time.

I DO totally agree that the importation and setup of objects from DCC apps is tedious, however. That really needs a bit of an overhaul.

[Gatts]

I wasn't aware that directly importing DDS textures wouldn't work, that's a shame :( My project will need tons of textures so it's going to be a lot of space usage just for my textures alone

[slimer]

I feel positively spoilt on how easy it is to import meshes and textures into UT3 compared to other game dev systems.

[Coma]

For example: You have 100 textures (DDS, 2048x2048x24). Each texture size about 3Mb (100 textures = 300Mb). For using with UDK you must convert em all to TGA and each texture size will be 12,7Mb (100 textures = 1270Mb).
We're in 2009...

You really don't want to compress your textures before importing them. PNG I could understand (it's lossless), but no JPG.

[philnolan3d]

I would really love to see some Lightwave 3D import plug-ins. Lightwave is so good at surface baking and GI as well as many other things. I know I am not alone on this. Please Epic! Lightwave support!

I'll second that, it used to be great that UDK supported LWO by default. Of course even FBX or Collada from LightWave would make me happy.

[philnolan3d]

I feel positively spoilt on how easy it is to import meshes and textures into UT3 compared to other game dev systems.

Easy? It's almost entirely non-standard formats.

[ffejnosliw]

Unreal requires uncompressed textures because it allows you to perform compression and change compression at anytime within the editor. It actually keeps around an uncompressed (PNG format) version of the texture in addition to the compressed version within the package until cooking is performed. It may require extra disk space on your end, but it allows more efficient flexibility I think. If you are going to be doing serious content creation, you should be prepared to need lots of disk space anyways. It just goes with the territory.