pure Rhino to UDK pipeline?

[Pandekage]

As an architecture student I'm absolutely in love with the possibility of having a real-time interactive presentation. I've tried learning 3ds Max, since it seems to be the standard modeling program for game engines, but I'm having zero success. Are there any differences with modeling in Rhino 4 instead, such as modeling, applying UV maps, texturing, and exporting process? Are there things I can't do when exporting to UDK from Rhino? I'm much more familiar with learning Rhino, since it's more of an architectural design tool than an animation/game design tool; plus I wouldn't have to learn two programs.

If there are Rhino users out there who successfully do UDK projects with Rhino meshes, I'd love to hear how you do it. But everyone is free to answer.

[reinrag]

I have never heard about Rhino, but does it export in .ASE ? if yes then that's all you need to export static meshes,

[Jacky]

Never used Rhino myself, but it says you can export and import fbx with Rhino so you're good to go i think.

[skwisdemon666]

Never heard of Rhino, last time I checked 3ds Max Design was the standard for architecture.

[Tom Shannon]

Rhino is actually VERY popular with Architects and designers. The only people that use MAX in Architecture are using it for visualization. Rhino and Sketchup are the most popular, I'd think with some using Revit Architecture or CAD software (Autocad or Microstation)and some using FormZ. I don't know that I've ever received a .max file from an architect.
As for the pipleine, i'm not entirely sure. I don't know if Rhino can create unique lightmap channels to be used with lightmass. I also haven't the first clue on getting the scales to match between the UDK's 1 uu = 2cm and Rhino's Foot/Meter based scale. However, the FBX file SHOULD work fairly well if you can tackle those issues.

[Dhampire]

I am also an architectural student working on a project using game engine. The only immediate issue for me is the DIRECTION of a mesh. If a mesh is 'inside-out', then its exported .fbx would not be visible in UDK.

One way is to use command Dir in Rhino, to flip reversed meshes.

[taz1004]

Since some of you are not familiar with Rhino, a brief history about 3D apps may interest you.

In early 90's before Maya, there was Alias Studio which was arguably the best NURBS "modeling" software. Automotive industry used them mostly and entertainment industry used it for modeling and Softimage for animation. Autodesk at this time only had 3D Studio which was gaining popularity in game industry.

Then Alias, in attempt to challenge Softimage in animation, released Maya. Since it was focused more on animation, it still had good modeling but lacked a lot of advanced surface evaluation features Alias Studio had. This is when few developers of Alias Studio leaves the company and creates Rhino. It soon gained popularity with people who were loyal to Alias Studio. It was one of the first to be released on PC (Alias and Softimage were on expensive Irix workstations) and very affordable. When other 3D apps cost around $10,000, Rhino was available for free at first. Had all class-A surfacing and evaluation tools. But seriously lacked rendering and animation.

There's one thing Rhino still does better than any other program. File conversion. We used to use Rhino to convert files between Autodesk programs. Which leads to the original question. Export as fbx and should import into UDK no problem as long as you adhere to UDK requirements.

Now both Maya and Softimage are under Autodesk. Rhino is still on their own. I always thought it was interesting that the two of the most pirated graphic application, 3DS Max and Photoshop, are the two companies who swallowed everyone.

[Henrik]

For scaling issues, a custom scale can be set in the FBX exporter. As far as invisible meshes due to reversed faces, you can also just make the material two sided in the UDK material editor.