UE3: Can we use Nurbs now in our models in game??

[ShredPrince]

So with these Normal mapped/ lowPoly models, is UE3 able to handle NURBS in game?

Or do we still have to convert them to polygonal objects?

[p2xelgen]

Polys Polys Polys

[Gregori]

I doubt so, since there is no standard amongst developers/API's for curves in 3D games yet!

[Phopojijo]

Actually OpenNURBS is the standard -- but its mostly funded by McNeel and Associates (of Rhino3d fame) and thus no-one really cares apart from McNeel and the opensourced Nurbs-based modelling teams (if there are any who even bothered picking up on NURBS.)

Best thing you can do is to use NURBS as a modelling tool then convert to polygons, allow the smoothing groups to be handled by the application.

Now whether or not surface-transfer software (AKA: Normalmap-o-matics) can accept NURBS surfaces as high-res meshes to generate normalsmaps, that's another story. In theory it'd work so long as the program can understand what a NURBS is... after all a Normalsmap is just a culmination of lighting data from various perpendicular light sources -- shouldn't matter what geometry it came from as long as it knows that it is indeed geometry, and how to represent that geometry.

[ShredPrince]

hmmm

So do you usually work with NURBS and convert vs using polys?

[Guru7892]

I would really like to see an answer about this, as well as the bone conventions and other junk. There is no reason why we shouldn't be allowed to start making custom content especialy if playable demos are able to be made of the game.

from what I've heard Epic wasn't able to mess up at all with their art because production times were so long for their creation. so why should it be any shorter for the modders, mappers, and other content creators (and aspiring versions there of)?

I just don't understand why development tools cant be released before the game is. Launching a game with an already built modding community should be a real plus. not to mention it could help Epic tackle the logistical issues of implementing custom content into x-box live and other gamming platforms.

[Henrik]

Uh guys hate to break it to you but technical specs have long been available at www.unrealtechnology.com that spell it out very clearly:

Most of our characters are built from two meshes: a realtime mesh with thousands of triangles, and a detail mesh with millions of triangles. We provide a distributed-computing application which raytraces the detail mesh and, from its high-polygon geometry, generates a normal map that is applied to the realtime mesh when rendering. The result is in-game objects with all of the lighting detail of the high poly mesh, but that are still easily rendered in real time.

If the ability to use NURBS was developed and it was that good, there would have been tons of hype about it. As it stands, nothing has ever been mentioned about NURBS.. Normal mapping is the big feature here, that ought to tell you something.

As for bones they talk about that as well. Read the page and you should get a pretty good idea of what you'll need to develop content for the engine.

[Boksha]

Why bother with direct support for NURBS?
Just take your NURBS model, and convert it to a low-poly and a high-poly model and use the latter to create a normal map for the former.

[shletten]

Well no nurbs before a long time I doubt, anyway Nurbs are only great for Pre-Rendered tasks not game models, I don't know if it is CPU-Intensive but It Wouldn't surprise me, anyway I find UE3 caracthers highly detailed, they look smooth and with a high amount of polygons, plus the normal map add all rest except it doesn't looks sharp enough, too plastic-like and speculared (the normal map).