Lightwave question

[Eroneouse]

Hi all, first post here for me and my question of the day is can lightwave assets be used in this SDK ? I am new to lightwave and new to SDK's I did have a quick search for lightwave but nothing showed up either as titles or search entire posts. I am assumeing lightwave models could be used as it has a few file type save options.

I was just glancing over the volumetric light instructions and at a quick glance it looks like it uses nodes the same as lightwave does have I got that right or am I misinterpreting my first glance.

So much to look over so little time... Thank you so much EPIC :D

[philnolan3d]

Unfortunately UDK only accepts the .ASE format for static meshes. The only way I know of to convert it is to output from LightWave as on OBJ and then import it into 3D Studio Max for, then export from Max as .ASE of course max is pretty expensive for a file converter. Also if you do get it converted watch the scale, meshes in UDK are huge compared to the real-world scale in LW.

It's a real shame Epic removed .LWO support. I'm looking at Unity as well and LightWave support is there for static meshes as well as rigged characters and animation too.

[Eroneouse]

Thank you for the reply, lightwave is undergoing a rewrite atm as newtek work on their new CORE system which is under NDA so I can only ask things based on what newtek have already said publically but this following cut n pasted from newteks public info on CORE...

The original LightWave object format, LWO, has gone through several revisions throughout its history. It is a popular format, and many assets exist in this format. Therefore, LWO is a fully-supported format within LightWave CORE™ , but it is not the default format (unless the user decides otherwise.) COLLADA is the basis format of LightWave CORE™ , with extensions added by the NewTek engineering team. In addition, FBX and other popular formats will enjoy broader support than in previous versions of LightWave, due in part to the flexibility of CORE™ vs. the classic architecture. In classic LightWave, evaluation orders are effectively fixed; this makes importing COLLADA and FBX files from other applications difficult at times, especially if rotation orders have been rearranged. The same would hold true for deformation evaluation order.

So my question now is does this UDK support this Collada and FBX format ?

[sueds]

udk is supposed to support collada but as I far I Can tell with few test. Only static meshes is accepted. Now maybe I Didn't set up properly my character but I can't find any source for that.

[Eroneouse]

Hey thanks for the answer. I have CORE so now I have something else to experiment on :)

[philnolan3d]

I don't have CORE yet, but I tried exporting a rigged character as Collada from LightWave 9.6. When I load into the Content Browser after checking the Skeletal Mesh" box it immediately says "Import Failed". The same character export as FBX loads perfectly into Unity so I don't think it's the character.

[sueds]

there is no fbx support as far as I can remember.

[philnolan3d]

Right, I was just saying that it was the same character, FBX is just the method of transport to Unity versus Collada to UDK.

[Eroneouse]

Theres a discussion here at newteks site about this UDK for U3 with one of the posters giving links to how to get lightwave stuff into the UDK via blender which is also a free DL... http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103530

[philnolan3d]

Thanks I was browsing the NT forum for UDK stuff and didn't see that thread.

[Doofi]

there is no fbx support as far as I can remember.

There should be. Its the only thing thats keeping me from jumping to UDK (is the trouble and inability of importing models, especially characters with non-Autodesk software)

If UDK did get FBX support (or a sure fire way to get LW/Modo/Other app models into UDK without headaches) then I would gladly use it.

[shadowscrawl]

i know this thread is kind of old but if anyone is still interested it looks like the newest build of udk has support for skeletal meshes in the .fbx format

as a modo user this is huge news for me and i cant wait to try it out

:D

[philnolan3d]

That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing.