UDK/UT3 Video Tutorials List and Support Thread

[geodav]

well it looks like your using the same mesh in the code for you attachment as for you weapon class, i know i do that in my videos but you should make a different mesh for the 3rd person.
as for the camera problem i've never noticed it because i just use the command behindview

[mrseth]

yeah, I got some issues with the attachment, I just let the game thinks im on 1st person and deal with it. But nevermind, solved everything now.

[2fast4u_dk]

Hey .I need some help.I'm searching for a way to make an animation to a vehicle.In my case,I want to make a car do a burnout,go forward and then slowly go back,then burnout again,and so on.I gues I'll be using Matinee,but can you give me a tutorial or some hints?I want the car to do that while I'm moving around,so this means an active animation with no trigger.Thank you.This is my scene ->

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[geodav]

if your trying to do that whilst playing then i think your going to have to code it, i'll be very honest i wouldn't even know where to start on something like that.

but you look on this forum and find "Tegleg" he's done a lot of vehicle coding so he might be more able to help with that

[2fast4u_dk]

Ok,thank you so much
Edit:Me again .Can you give me a tutorial or something for making some crowd characters?I want to make some people on the side of the road to move,take pictures and so on,to be more realistic.

[Justanother1]

Ok, I'll post it here ....
ATTN Geodav ... THANK YOU FOR THE YOUTUBE - BLENDER VIDS !!!!!!!!! I'm a new user, just downloaded UDK Yesterday. But I've built many models and successfully imported them with animations into 3DRad and PASandbox. So you can imagine my heart sinking as I searched for help getting models into UDK and finding only 3DSMax tutorials (I don't have $4k software) until I found this thread and your YouTube channel. And by the way thank you for being patient and Learning Blender, I know it has an irritating learning curve. I usually model with Wing3d and then Paint in Sculptris and Stay away from Blender until I absolutely need it. However, Blender 2.6x has come a very long way from the old Blender 2.4 and quit a lot can be done with it !! Now after seeing your vids I Know I can get my models into UDK and have some real fun!! Thanks Again !!

[raul]

I am having this same issue :/

BTW, geodav, wow, your tutorials are insanely helpful! Thank you so much!

Ok, so adjusting the translation values in the vehicle factory class definitely fixed the issue where he's spawning in the ground..

Begin Object Name=SVehicleMesh
		SkeletalMesh=SkeletalMesh'BattleDronesData.SkeletalMeshes.Drones.SK_VH_Strider'
		Translation=(X=0.0,Y=0.0,Z=-38.0)

I changed the Z value from 70 to 38 (subtracted 32 units) and he's back on the ground again. Sadly the game still crashes instantly when I try to play. Do you think having a different directory structure in my package (and my package itself is in UDKGame\Content\Packages instead if just the content directory) would cause the game to crash? You'd think there'd be more flexibility there since I updated the file structure in the uc files to match my structure.

[geodav]

ok if your crashing on vehicle entry then i need to see the launch.log to find any clues, there are loads of things on vehicles that can cause a crash (had most of them i think) anything from typo's to missing bones materials physics animtree

ps i'm only online CEST evenings

[raul]

According to the log, missing a bone, but doesnt say where. :/ By any chance, have you made the contents of this tutorial avaible for download? I would love to just look at that and peek through it rather than bug you every time i get stuck. hehe.

==== Worlds needing PIE Save:
[0033.23] Log: ==== 0 total
[0033.23] Cmd: MAP LOAD PLAYWORLD=1 FILE="C:\UDK\UDK-2011-10\Binaries\Win32\..\..\UDKGame\Autosaves\UEDPIEDM-testTerrain.udk"
[0033.25] Log: Finished looking for orphan Actors (0.006 secs)
[0033.25] Log: Game class is 'UTDeathmatch'
[0033.28] Log: Primary PhysX scene will be in software.
[0033.28] Log: Creating Primary PhysX Scene.
[0033.28] Log: *** WARNING - PATHS MAY NOT BE VALID ***
[0033.28] Log: Bringing World UEDPIEDM-testTerrain.TheWorld up for play (0) at 2012.04.23-20.37.46
[0033.29] Error: ImportText (DefaultMapPrefixes): Missing closing parenthesis: (Prefix=MK,bUsesCommonPackage=FALSE,GameType=Ma kabroGame.MakabroInfo)
[0033.31] Warning: Material Master_Material.Materials.Master_Material missing bUsedWithSkeletalMesh=True!
[0033.31] Log: ASVehicle::ModifyNxActorDesc : Bone (Engine) not found in Vehicle (MKVehicle_RV1_Content_0) SkeletalMesh (RV1_blockout)
[0033.38] Critical: appError called: Assertion failed: i>=0 && (i<ArrayNum||(i==0 && ArrayNum==0)) [File:d:\depot\unrealengine3\development\src\core\i nc\Array.h] [Line: 575]

Stack: Address = 0x1f8799 (filename not found) [in C:\UDK\UDK-2011-10\Binaries\Win32\UDK.exe]

[geodav]

Bone (Engine) not found in Vehicle (MKVehicle_RV1_Content_0)

tells me your using the Manta code as a base, the "Engine" bone is the bone that the code uses to link the hoverwheels to, have a look in your main vehicle .uc file for something like

Begin Object Class=UTHoverWheel Name=RThruster
		BoneName="WW_Prime"
		BoneOffset=(X=-50.0,Y=100.0,Z=-190.0)       //Z=-200
		WheelRadius=10
		SuspensionTravel=140
		bPoweredWheel=false
		LongSlipFactor=0.0
		LatSlipFactor=0.0
		HandbrakeLongSlipFactor=0.0
		HandbrakeLatSlipFactor=0.0
		SteerFactor=1.0
		bHoverWheel=true
	End Object
	Wheels(0)=RThruster

now change the "BoneName" to the main bone of your vehicles rig.

ps. which content do you need, let me know and i'll get it uploaded somewhere for you and everyone else

[raul]

I figured out what the problem was, i forgot to tell change the content class to extend off the base class so in my case...

class MKVehicle_RV1_Content extends MKVehicle_RV1;

used to read..

class MKVehicle_RV1_Content extends UTVehicle_Manta;

After this it worked! Now the whole model goes under the ground..lol. I guess if its not one thing is another right. Then i figured out what went wrong. I forgot the main root bone that needs to be sitting on the ground.


I was just wondering if you could upload your package, with the walker, the anim, the physics material etc. And the code! That you showed in the tutorial. Pretty please?!

I havent tweaked my settings much, but how do you make it to where the mech doesnt feel like its floating? I made a video out of exicitment. TO show you what ive accomplished thanks to your tutorials, and to show you how i finally got the mech to work. Of course there is still a lot of room for improvement. And this just a block out, i will be making an actual asset, but more of that later.

Some questions i have.
1)The physics material, do i apply to all the bones in the physics editor?
2)Which bone, or what is the socket that the player gets attached to when driving?
3)What if i wanted to have more than two drivers?
4) in my video, you see me shooting the mech, and the projectiles just go through it. Is this because i didnt assign hit collisions to those bones? Or does it have to do with the physics material?
5) on my video you see me shooting the mech, and once a project hits it it goes off flying away...lol. Not sure what causes this.

Geodav tutorials are just awesome..thats all i have to say. On my own i would have problably taken a couple more days to figure this stuff out. And if anyone is curious i made two videos. The 1st video shows what i accomplished during the weekend. Yes..i sat down THE whole weekend trying to get this stuff to work. I have experience scripting so that part wasnt too hard. it was juts the setting up and exporting out that always gets me.

This is the product of watching geodav's tutorials

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pswTFB82c-s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8Rr...ature=youtu.be

[2fast4u_dk]

I need some help.I have a vehicle and I would like to set up a custom animation.For example,I want to open its doors when I press a specific button.How can I do that?Thank you.

[geodav]

ok let my try answer @2fast4u_dk first
1st. make your anim, export/import into an animset
2nd. in your code default properties add the line

	VehicleAnims(0)=(AnimTag=Created,AnimSeqs=(LandingGear_Down),AnimRate=1.0,bAnimLoopLastSeq=false,AnimPlayerName=DevilfishPlayer)

notice the "AnimTag=Created" "Created" is the command you can use any of the normal pawn commands to set this eg Crouch or Jump
3rd. if you get stuck watch my UDK vehicle tutorials they mention the animplayer for the animtree

now to @raul
1) might be a good idea, i did just in case
2) if not stated in the seat code then the root/base bone, you can state it via the line

SeatBone=ls_leftseat,

in the seat code
3) you can have extra seats but only the first is the driver, any others can use extra weapons, but they will have the same sitting anim, unless you know how to change it
4) most likely, add the physmats and the collision bones and you should be fine
5) this is because the code is for the manta which will behave the same, in newer walker versions i use a simplified scorpian code+physmats which work better.

to fix the floaty feel i switched to the wheeled vehicle code, which works just as well and steers a bit better, that tutorial i did on my other computer to which i won't have access till next week maybe (locked away at my other work place) but i'll see what i can digg up for you

[2fast4u_dk]

Thank you so much,I'll try it

[2fast4u_dk]

I've tried it but something is wrong.This is what I've done.
I opened the vehicle with 3ds max,I detached the door and animated it.I used "Trajectories" to set up end time and samples,then using actorx I exported it.Then in UDK i created a new anim set using the vehicle's skeletal mesh and then imported the animation.When I try to play the animation,nothing happens.
Why is this happening?Is it ok to animate only the vehicle model in 3ds max without any bones?
Thank you.

[geodav]

afaik you need to have the mesh as one piece, if you want to animate the doors then add door bones to your rig and skin the whole door to the bone, then do the animation with the bone, i take it your using fbx so i'm not sure on the settings for that

[2fast4u_dk]

Oh maaaaaan,I've done it,I've succesfully imported an FBX animation,thank you so much.Now I'll try to trigger it.Another question I have .When I want to skin specific parts to bones,how can I make this easier?Because i keep selecting verteces that i don't want and its frustrating.Isn't there an easier way?Thank you.

[geodav]

carefully select all the polygons you want to be in a single section then click the dettach button and select detach to element, now when you skin use the select element tick box

[2fast4u_dk]

Thank you .I managed that too.Now for another question(sorry for bothering).Where should I add the line?
I added it into "UTVehicle_Eclipse_Tuning.uc" after the line "defaultproperties" and I changed it into
VehicleAnims(0)=(AnimTag=Jump,AnimSeqs=(eclipse_bo ne_animation),AnimRate=1.0,bAnimLoopLastSeq=false, AnimPlayerName=DevilfishPlayer)
and it still doesn't work.What should I do? 10000 times thank you

[geodav]

i doubt it will work till you add your own "animplayer" node to your vehicles animtree then change the name in the "AnimPlayerName=DevilfishPlayer"

its not a simple thing to explain which is why i did my best with this video http://youtu.be/-HfzaWzVsAY

[lintaogood]

cool work、、、~~guy

[2fast4u_dk]

Thank you .I'll check it out.Also,how can I assign a sound to a part of the car.In my case i want to make the trunk subwoofers play music,how can I assign a sound to them on a drivable car?Thank you.
Also,how can I edit the smoke coming from the tires of scorpion?I want a custom made tire smoke.Thank you.(sorry for all this questions)

[geodav]

ok sounds are harder to do because it requires a fare bit of coding but take a look at the scorpian code for ideas, the same for the wheel effects look at what the scorpian has and see how Epic did it

[2fast4u_dk]

carefully select all the polygons you want to be in a single section then click the dettach button and select detach to element, now when you skin use the select element tick box

I tried that with another car and it doesn't work properly.I attach everything to 1 object,then I select the polygons,i click detach to element,and then when I skin ,I click select element and it doesn't select everything I detached,just some part of it.What can I do? Thank you.

[geodav]

thats the hard part if sections of it was a element before hand, i'm sure there is a way to fix it but i'm no pro, i'd detact to object then weld vertices then again select and detach to element then re-attach to the main mesh and see if that helps

[2fast4u_dk]

I thought of that too,but it takes a lot of unnecesary time .I thought there would be an easier way.I'll keep searching.Thank you so much for everything

[2fast4u_dk]

Why do 3d objects tend to get "boxier" and bad looking,sometimes when I attach other objects?Thank you.(3ds max)

[geodav]

normally because you might lose or change the smooth groups

[2fast4u_dk]

Thank you .Now I have 2 questions.
I want to make a city road.What is the best method?I used to make the road in 3dsmax and then import it into udk,but I think there are better ways to do this.If so,what are they?
How can I make a proper collision model to a road?I tried making a box and naming it UCX_ROAD(at least i think it was ucx),and it didn't work for the road,though it worked for trees and lamp posts.
Thank you.

[geodav]

ok there's no road building in UDK even though people have asked for one, afaik you'll have to make your own road meshes

for the collision meshes to work you need to name them the same as the staticmesh eg:-
S_RoadBendLeft = staticmesh
UCX_RoadBendLeft_01 = collision mesh 01
UCX_RoadBendLeft_02 = collision mesh 02 if you need more than one mesh
UCX_RoadBendLeft_03 = collision mesh 03

[2fast4u_dk]

Ok,thank you so much .
Do you have a good material for car paint that i could make please?

[geodav]

sorry but i'm hopeless with materials

[2fast4u_dk]

Oh,ok,thanks .
Now,another problem )(i`m so annoying you with my questions).
What can I do to avoid this kind of shapes on my mesh?Some have them,some don't.I tryied smoothing groups,optimizing,and other stuff in 3ds max but still no result.


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[geodav]

looks like you have too many materials slots, atm i can read at least 47, most vehicles have 1 or 2 !!!

you may also have to adjust the specular value of your textures

[2fast4u_dk]

Thank you.I know it has many materials but I didn't optimize the model,I just imported it and no matter what I do,I can't fix this strange geometry

[geodav]

might be an idea to optimise and then sort out the materials

[Snipe34]

First off, Thanks Geodav for your many, many tuts! And omg, I finally got to the end of this thread!

Challenger11 pictured was made using Blender; 2676 tris; 1024xtexture + separate tracks tex + viewport tex shaders. The images are of the tank in a utk4 mod, but I'll bring the beast into UDK, no doubt with the help of your tutorials Geodav - actually a link from your tank tut led me right back here (i may sound over confident, with 'bring the beast into UDK' so should add I have a couple of operational weapons already in UDK + custom meshes, wavy grass, particles, muzzle flashes etc etc - the tank bones may need modifying, but nps)

The problem, which may not be a problem in UDK. I've done searches seen UDK tanks in action but no mention of my problem, below:
Some history: for ut2k4 pictured I used the hovertank code, also modified using some of Meowcat's code from his Yarm Mod. Meowcat's (humvee) code almost let me have 3 crew: driver; cannon and mg. So the tank has a driver and a separate cannon turret gunner. But the MG is the BIG problem.

The hovertank mg, utk4 is situated dead centre of the cannon turret, so no one notices - it's connected to the chassis bone, as was.
The mg needs to be offset. Meaning, the mg needs to be connected to the cannon turret, so the offset mg will rotate with the cannon turret bone. And obviously also the mg itself can also rotate.

I didn't solve the problem in utk4. Even Meowcat said I'd need some hacky code to make it work. I'm learning code, ever hoping to raise myself to the level of hacky ^^ Not really expecting a solution but I'm hoping someone can suggest something, even some clues.

Challenger11 with driver - red beret beneath the cannon

Challenger11 firing - driver hidden in cannon

The separate mg already to place

[geodav]

ok having done vehicles/tanks in UT2004/UT3/UDK i think i know a little about it, thing to remember with UT3/UDK is that the vehicle mesh is one piece, make sure your bones are linked correctly, in your case the yaw bone for the MG is the child of the turrets yaw bone, after that its the magic of the animtree controls.

as an example look at the UT3 Goliath tank, you can pick up a cheap (5-10$) copy of UT3

[Snipe34]

ok having done vehicles/tanks in UT2004/UT3/UDK i think i know a little about it, thing to remember with UT3/UDK is that the vehicle mesh is one piece, make sure your bones are linked correctly, in your case the yaw bone for the MG is the child of the turrets yaw bone, after that its the magic of the animtree controls.

as an example look at the UT3 Goliath tank, you can pick up a cheap (5-10$) copy of UT3

Thanks for taking the time to reply, and so quickly. I thought you were English, but I gave some links of your Blender tuts to a German guy and your origin was clarified Also seems I'll have to make a LeopardII mbt + German troops because there's so many German guys interested in the mod.

I have UT3, but not installed. New harddrive so I didn't bother yet. Although I was thinking I would like UT3 sniper code, and more vehicle code. Your meaning is: I can re-install UT3 and use that code as a basis?! woohoo!!
Most wonderful of all, seems you're saying a machinegun placement on top of the Challenger - also later a LeopardII - will be no problem, excellent!

Although "one piece?" So unlike UTk4, which has a separate tank base / turret / mg. Instead for UDK, these must all be included in the same .psk? ... well yes, that's exactly what you said Ah yeah, I notice the UDK Scorpion bones to the gun: Main_Root > Gun_Base > Gun_Rotate. The Gun_Rotate position at the rear is definitely off-centre. Also I downloaded your file udk_tank_tutorial to have a look at anim trees, which although I made one already are still a little mystifying.

But mg turret soon fixed!!! The more learn about UDK the better I like it! Much appreciate your help Geodav!!
--------------
@2fast4u_dk I made a mesh with 11 material slots and I thought that was pushing it, but 47 omg Certainly as Geodav says 1 or 2 slot are expected, er, um, maybe even 11 xd
But logically, larger texture areas would look much better and require less UV editing, matching the edges.
Maybe you misunderstand the UV process? That is: sectioning off areas so the sectioned unwraps are placed on different areas of your UV texture. Not: each section must be a different texture entirely.
I would only use a different texture for say headlights, tail lights - so they shine. Separate texture again for glass. But the rest of car texture would be a single texture. So if I made a car like yours it would only be 4 textures. Maybe only 2, if Glass, tail and headlights were on a single tex with the alpha modified to suit.
Or even then, a single texture for the whole thing, again, divide up the alpha for lighting and glass.
btw, your car has a realistic looking shape, nice work.

[geodav]

just to let you know i'm Scottish but i've lived in Germany for over 20 odd years which is why you see german text some times when i copy/paste or do other things i use a german version of windows.

you don#t need to re-install UT3 just for the code you can download that from the UDN website http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UT3Mo...Source%20Files use the 1.5 version, though remember you shouldn't use that code in any commersial project