Don't have max, maya or XSI...how to get characters into game?

[freeflyklown]

Hi,

I am new to UDK, just played around with it a bit and like it very much so far. But please can anybody shed some light into the possibilities of getting content into the engine?
Without max, maya, or xsi, is there a way to get animated characters into the engine? As I understand from forums, only collada can get importet, but no animated meshes.
How is everyone doing this?
I own lightwave, is there a way to get a simple animated character into UDK?
I hope it works somehow, but if not, then I think it could be difficult for lots of indies that do not have the money for the expensive DCC packages.

[badkangaroo]

give blender a try, there are exporters for that. UDK can also import collada so, anything that exports collada might work.

[BryanRobertson]

You can use XSI Modtool, but not for commercial games.

To be honest, I'm getting fed up of having time wasted by the apps I have available giving me dodgy exports. I'm this close to writing an X to PSK/PSA converter.

Would probably be quicker than dealing with all the nonsense these apps make me put up with. (Seriously, offsetting the skeleton so that it's miles away the mesh just because I decided to scale the whole thing?)

[clintonman]

A psk/psa import export plugin can be found here:

http://www.troggpond.com/lwtools/index.html

It's near the top "LW7.0 Compatible plugins". For static meshes you can export collada if you have LW ver 9 and up.

[freeflyklown]

clintonman, have you tried theses LW-plugins with LW 9.6? Did it work with animated characters?

[Xero]

You can use XSI Modtool, but not for commercial games.

To be honest, I'm getting fed up of having time wasted by the apps I have available giving me dodgy exports. I'm this close to writing an X to PSK/PSA converter.

Would probably be quicker than dealing with all the nonsense these apps make me put up with. (Seriously, offsetting the skeleton so that it's miles away the mesh just because I decided to scale the whole thing?)

Lol dude I know exactly what you mean.
I've figured out a way to scale you skeleton and mesh in Blender after you're skinned it without it going the scale going all weird in the editor.

[clintonman]

clintonman, have you tried theses LW-plugins with LW 9.6? Did it work with animated characters?
I did try it with one of the 9.x versions and it was an animated character. I don't remember which version but I do plan to try it again soon. I'll let you know how it turns out. There were 2 things to watch out for that weren't obvious to me.

To export you add one of the plugins as a displacement first and when you export, the target folder has to have 2 folders in it, one named "Models" and one named "Classes".

[clintonman]

The old plugins for LW7 still work with LW9.6 I did a test this morning with 32bit LW I haven't tried 64bit yet. I tested by importing the UDNMale and one of it's animations then exporting out and into UDK and UT3 editors. Mesh and animation came in just fine.

Edit: I put my rough notes up. I'll be writing a proper tutorial in the near future on how to use the plugin.

http://www.clintons3d.com/tutorials/lightwaveUnrealPlugins.htm

[Conjured]

To be honest, I'm getting fed up of having time wasted by the apps I have available giving me dodgy exports. I'm this close to writing an X to PSK/PSA converter.
I'm getting sick of downloading new programs only to fail time and time again too. (LightWave is expensive too)
I need to convert a lot of X file models from FPSCreator (http://www.fpscreator.com/), so if it will work with those then I will buy it, so please share it with us if you do.
I'm sure there are a lot of people (tens of thousands) who have downloaded the UDK and who do not own commercial licenses for Max, Maya, or XSI.
Most models come with an X format version, so I'm sure your converter would be used a lot by people buying models and not modeling them.
If you make your converter then many people would probably buy it, especially if it is a stand alone converter and it is priced affordably.


Edit


The old plugins for LW7 still work with LW9.6 I did a test this morning with 32bit LW
I think I might get the Lightwave program, but I am going to try the Full version of 3D Arsenal (http://www.newtek.com/3DA/) that includes LW7.5, and maybe upgrade LW later. ($495)

[Teto]

The problem is simple:
- Hey dude, why are you using UDK today?
- Because it's free, and I can make a complete game for my own pleasure and for free.
- So why are you crying like a child?
- Because I'm poor, and if I didn't buy the engine before because of its cost, it's not to have to buy an expensive soft for animated meshes or whatever.
- Use Blender and program a tool for conversion, it's easy, fast...
- I'm not a programmer. I have difficulties with the scripting language in UDK, so...

Is it impossible for someone in Epic to make, for a free engine, useful plug-ins for free animation softs? :o I'm sure there are many smart programmers who can program something reliable easily.

Teto, a poor guy that hasn't 3000$ for a software.

[Jade-Phoenix]

Ok but you should by all rights still be able to use Maya PLE for export/import opitions to the UDK Editor. Or am I wrong? Animated or not you should still be able to w/o too much trouble.

[guineapig]

Im a little bit confused right now. Does Blender work or not? I mean "working" ie put all stuff in colloda so that it works in the ueditor :confused:

[geodav]

yes blender does work check for a guy called darknet in the UT3 forums

[Xennon]

Both Blender and truespace have psk/psa exporters avaliable for them. I have only done basic test but they both seem to work.

[ICEBreaker42]

Mind posting the link to the exporters. I'm looking for ones that are working and up to date for UDK.
Thanks in advance

[Xennon]

Blender exporter here http://utforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=602953

and truespace exporter here http://www.clintons3d.com/

[ICEBreaker42]

hey, I also found this page, anyone know if the blender scripts are up to date for blender that are here? Just thought I would also post what I found for the Blenders out there.

http://www.katsbits.com/htm/tools_utilities.htm