Phong Management

[Viion]

How do I change the Phong Shading, I want shading to be flat (in 3ds max you do this by changing it to faceted in the material editor).

Here is an image of what im trying to do, to the left is how the shading should look, done in 3ds max, and on the right is how its staying in the UDK and i cant seem to change it no matter what I do.

http://viion.co.uk/example.jpg

[CrazyIwan]

The problem is not the phong, the problem is your smoothing group in MAX. Change smoothing and try again.

[Viion]

That isnt changing anything after importing the .ase no matter how I change the smoothing group.

[CrazyIwan]

Your smoothing is 0?

[Viion]

Yes, cleared all smoothing.

[CrazyIwan]

Hmm... i've never worked with material editor in UEd before, maybe you can find something about smoothing there? Im sure its smoothing problem.

[Viion]

Tried doing a search in the UDK documentation for smoothing and did not find anything of relivant, any search for it in the material expressions doesnt come up with anything.

Hmm, really stumped here lol Is there another way to export static meshes other than exporting as .ase ?

[Piranhi]

Have you given it a blank default material before exporting it from 3Ds max?

[Viion]

Yes I added material, I even tried exporting with a faceted material. No luck.

[CrazyIwan]

Just tried to import .ase from MAX. Is smoothed in UDK, but not so strong like your model. I would suggest, try to assign any Material in UDK to your object. Maybe you can tweak smoothness there.

[Viion]

I am starting to think its something in the material editor as if I use a material out of the "Cool Materials" package, the shading looks fine. The thing is though if I clone that material and just remove the actual texture it goes back to not working very well

[Denny]

Definitely is your smoothing groups, the material editor has nothing to do with normal directions unless explicitly overrided. Have you check ActorX Options for any smoothing group settings? Also, this is a static mesh you're exporting no? Skeletal Meshes has smoothing groups turned off by default as any smoothing groups segments a skeletal mesh and is generally not recommended. Static Meshes on the other hand should have it on by default.

[sueds]

it happens when you export in maya for example. You have to select obey hard edge on the menu to export and I guess you should be fine.

[Norman3D]

If you import your model without any smoothing group information, unreal will add the same smoothing group to all the faces.
Try to add a "Smooth" modifier in 3dsmax to your mesh, with a very low angle, and export again. The problem is not in unreal, that is for sure ;)

[Viion]

Ah I see, Even with a smoothing group (4 groups) on 45 angle it still comes out as that same result. I will keep trying and exporting many.

That model is exported in 3ds max as a .ase, if I export as a actorX .psk it works fine but then its not a static mesh no more in unreal? If i shoot at it, it acts as if its not there, it doesnt create shadows like default .ase models do.

This is becoming a riddle!

[strangelet]

afaik if your model has NO smooth groups, ued imports it with one single smooth group. try doing an auto-smooth on your model then reexporting.

also check for duplicate faces, ued welds identical verts leading to some nasty smooth errors

[Viion]

Even if I make smoothing groups in 3ds max, export it as a .ase, import it into the udk it still comes out the same. Its as if its ignoring all my 3ds max settings and just exporting a plain mesh like an obj file would.

Here is the .3ds file if anyone wants to try, see if they get same result as me.

viion.co.uk/Archway.3ds

[musilowski]

I exported static meshes from Maya to Unreal Engine with ActorX with no problems, should work fine for Max too.

Have you set up your collision properly in the mesh editor?

[Viion]

For an psk, i wont of setup collision, i know how to, I just want to figure out this smoothing issue, even putting a flat single colour texture onto my .psk will cause a similar issue where i get repeated lines across the mesh.

Here is an example of a .psk:
http://viion.co.uk/texture.JPG, the smoothing is better but the texture looks awful. And when I build lighting it doesnt create the same lighting softness (occlusion) as a .ase static mesh would.

[fritzmonkey]

Try welding all of your verts before smoothing your model. The model you posted has duplicate verts all over the place.

[Viion]

That might be 3ds max way of converting it to tris, i modelled in quads on another package, I will adjust it now and try.

[Viion]

Finally!, that was the issue with all the open verts, I would have realised this if I had loaded the 3ds file back into my 3d package to see it had tri'd incorrectly.

The solution to this was to export as an .obj from the 3d package im using, open this into 3ds max (as it would have no smooth group data), and then let 3ds max apply its smooth group. This then carried over in the .ase and loaded in unreal looking flat =)

victory! thank you everyone for all the replies!

Here is the outcome, (will look better with better texture but the white shows the shading and flat surfaces clearly)

http://viion.co.uk/finally.JPG

[BigFatWarlock]

This looks like an export issue, not an Unreal issue.

I'm a maya user, not a max user, so bear with me.

I'm pretty sure Max comes with the ability to save as .ase files. Though these work for import into Unreal, they aren't optimal. Instead, use the ActorX plug-in. It gives you lots of tools to include collision volumes, manage multiple objects, do rigged characters and animation, and control over surface normals.

You can find ActorX here http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorX.html

In Maya, the plug-in has a checkbox for "Obey Hard Edges" which allows your normals to flow accurately into an ase format and therefore Unreal/UDK.

[strangelet]

hey viion, you may want to scale down your ambition in terms of the polycount on meshes like that :P

too many of those is going to kill things pretty quick. you should look into normal baking. its complex but the results are awesome. i could make that look exactly the same in about 200 poly

[fritzmonkey]

Viion, what did you use to model that?