Just saying Hello

[Gytaco]

Hey Guys

I have just been getting into the UDK and thought I would pop in since there is not alot of Architectural Support yet :)

Our company is engineering Civil, Structural and Building Services (Electrical, Ducts, Pipes, Fire etc) but no Architectural.

I have some idea's but would like a couple of questions answered if that's possible.
Before I ask let me begin by saying I have spent time bringing a Project into the UDK completely (3 Storey Building), updating Materials, adding Lighting, getting the project running and able to move and navigate round, as well as basic activations like lights, doors, windows etc...

Can you apply multiple materials to static meshes, that can be changed via interaction. For Instance I have a painted wall, but I want to switch off the paint to reveal UV wrap showing the loads (I have the bitmap) Is this possible or do I need to use LOD's or multiple objects with hide's??

Is there any decent places out there that supply UDK content (Ai's, Materials, content) for Arch work free or paid for?

In regards to content some of our steel structures have 100's of the same beam geometry in differrent locations. Now our design softwore places these quite quickly and I can bring them in as statice meshes easily, however how badly does that affect the tools vs using prefabs and manually placing which increases the amount of work to be redone.

Also in regards to materials is there more information in terms of exactly what material types can transfer automatically from 3ds max? I'm guessing UV's have to be added back in the UDK, but some of my multi's do come in, are there any others?

Lastly can static meshes be animated? If I have a sequence of construction for a column (so the steel appears then the plates, then the bolts) that I wish to build into a object that shows when i interact with it, can I load that animation is as a static mesh? or does it require a skeletal model? Would I have to do this type of thing as a matinee? or can I simply add it as interactive option.

Lastly any rules of thumb people use for level streaming? So far I have had no issues and I am lucky since I work on high end hardware and we eventually will use VM via a login so other people's machine requirements are not an issue, but for planning purposes I would be interested as I see having the whole building in one level being the most useful way to present not only the internals but the site conditions aswell.

Thank you for your time.

[Nawrot]

Yes you can apply multiple materials to static meshes, you can do it in a dozen of ways.

Sadly there is no place with UDK assets ready to use, and most of 3d models on internet are not prepared to work for game engine. For paid you can always post small tasks here, plenty of people ready to do small tasks for some payment, or do contract jobs.

You change model of mesh and all instances of it will be updated. There is snippet code that you can use to create levels out of script, you can make some code to generate such scripts. Also splitting big structures into smaller repeated pieces is exactly what udk likes to get.

UV's are done in max and transferred to udk. For materials, you either make them from simple texture (like wood metal etc.) or make skin (render to texture your model in max).

For your column example you can make 3 static meshes then make them visible them one after another. You can also make vertex animation for some deformation of surfaces. I think you probably need some scripting to develop tools (actors) that suit your needs.

No idea about your streaming, never done that on scale you probably do it.

[Gytaco]

Thanks alot!!!

[Sir. Polaris]

Sadly there is no place with UDK assets ready to use, and most of 3d models on internet are not prepared to work for game engine. For paid you can always post small tasks here, plenty of people ready to do small tasks for some payment, or do contract jobs.

I'm working on this though :D

[micahpharoh]

Lastly can static meshes be animated? If I have a sequence of construction for a column (so the steel appears then the plates, then the bolts) that I wish to build into a object that shows when i interact with it, can I load that animation is as a static mesh? or does it require a skeletal model? Would I have to do this type of thing as a matinee? or can I simply add it as interactive option.

Static mesh movement can be animated, but you can't animate them with bones and such. What I would suggest, is use static meshes where possible but use skeletal meshes when you need to.

And either way you have to use matinee to animate it. I have a ton of tutorials on matinee if it will help you any.