Unreal mapping community

    Hey,

    I'm interested in learning how to map for the Unreal engine, as my experience so far is pretty much limited to Quake-born engines. I feel I need to learn a next-gen engine if I am to get a job doing what I love, and since Source is not much of a challenge after Half-Life mapping for so long (and I do Source work for NS2 besides), the Unreal engine seems to me a good bet.

    And besides, it's an engine that has long eluded me, and I would like to be able to say that I am proficient in it.

    So anyway, get to the point...

    What is a good active Unreal editing community? I'm sure there must be goldmines of information on forums somewhere, but I can't find any good leads as to where that would be. Nearly all the tutorials I find for the Unreal engine are about how to do simple things, and I know there is a lot of complexity to the engine and much more to learn than, say, how to make a lift.

    Can anyone make any recommendations to someone who is looking to expand their skills into the Unreal engine?

    I can't really speak for any communities out there but the largest one I know of is the BeyondUnreal Forums.

    As for technical information on learning the engine, I use the UDN. As far as I know it's the most updated/informative site about the editor/engine/pipeline.

    I'm sure others around here should be able to post some better links, but that's the one I rely on most.

    the bonus DVDs of unreal 2003 (or 2004???) hat a couple of video tutorials too.

    anyway: why should source not be a next generation engine? you think unreal3 is so uber 1337 because it is more hyped in the media and people tend to use the expression "next gen" frequently in the same sentence with "unreal".

    well do what you want, but if you are just looking for a new adventure, it is okay. if you think unreal is so much better, well then i think you might get disappointed, because you might miss a lot of features you had in the quake engines/pipelines.

    Because it was released in 2004 and doesnt even has the most basic functionality like lighting preview, requires you to make materials with notepad and cant handle meshes very well ?

    There are +100 games UE3 games in production at the moment, its becoming an absolute huge market to specialize in so the guy is right.

    http://www.beyondunreal.com is the largest Unreal community site so if you follow that site you should stay pretty up to date, also about any new tutorials and all that get released.

    http://www.roboblitz.com/RoboBlitzEdito ... /Main_Page for additional UE3 stuff.

    Quote from hessi

    the bonus DVDs of unreal 2003 (or 2004???) hat a couple of video tutorials too.anyway: why should source not be a next generation engine? you think unreal3 is so uber 1337 because it is more hyped in the media and people tend to use the expression "next gen" frequently in the same sentence with "unreal".

    here is why:

    -editor view port = engine = model viewer

    -editable particle effects in the editor

    -gui wysiwyg material editor

    -lighting wysiwyg in the editor

    -subtractive csg system 1 brush for a room not 6 or more

    -compiling takes 10 times less time

    -vising happens in real time dynamic in game / in editor and delivers a better -result than qvis-hlvis-vis

    -better lighting on models

    -you can properly move rotate and scale things in the 3d view

    -you can hear your sound entities and properly set up their fall offs right in the editor

    -everything loads faster and performs faster (this is based on my personal observation and nothing else)

    -you dont have to use a singel command line tool to get something in game

    -source file and binary file are one and the same thing

    -compiling textures and models into your level is the easiest thing in the world

    -easier to learn all around

    -overlays / projectors dynamically choose their destination geometry

    -deleting a light source doesn't require you to rebake the ligthmaps since they seam to be stored in layers internally

    - you can choose between tnl vertex and map lighting on models

    - you can create bsp geometry in any 3d package you don't even lose your material assignments and uvmaps while importing it as a brush shape.

    Quote from hessi

    well do what you want, but if you are just looking for a new adventure, it is okay. if you think unreal is so much better, well then i think you might get disappointed, because you might miss a lot of features you had in the quake engines/pipelines.

    i cant think of single one .... ... gi lightmaps maybe ...

    i love you hessi but that post was pretty b00n you clearly have never worked with unreal

    back to topic i was allways very active on this board

    http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/fo ... .php?f=322

    i worked with unreal2003/04 ??? made a single simple scene and light setup was like the biggest piece of crap i have seen in my entire life!

    why do people blame compile times? source is using a prerendered lightmap. that means: no waste of cpu for raytracing and other "useless static" stuff. so there is no way to make a realtime preview of a lighting in the editor because there is no such thing that can render a lightmap of an entire level in real time.

    so i am NOT b00n! i just call the fact, that there is no possibility if you decide to use prerendered lightmaps.

    why i dont vote for 100% realtime lighting calculation: lighting is almost static the whole time and the calculation of global illumination, hdr and all the other stuff just takes a bunch of time (as we can see if you hit a renderbutton in max, maya or launch vrad).

    i did never say unreal is the worst piece of code shit. it sure is a nice engine for what it is meant to be: fast pipeline, some nice shaders of the directx api and fast lighting calculation (that is not as good as a source or mental ray raytracer).

    blame me if you want but just calling a n00b because you disagree with me is kind of foolish.

    btw sourcefile and binary map file combined is not a feature i personally would like to have. my work belongs to me. though source-engine already offers too much!

    why should unreal be easier to learn? there is a source sdk wiki with plenty of information and you can grab a lot of knowledge from forums or already existing standard content.

    Quote from hessi

    the bonus DVDs of unreal 2003 (or 2004???) hat a couple of video tutorials too.anyway: why should source not be a next generation engine? you think unreal3 is so uber 1337 because it is more hyped in the media and people tend to use the expression "next gen" frequently in the same sentence with "unreal".

    well do what you want, but if you are just looking for a new adventure, it is okay. if you think unreal is so much better, well then i think you might get disappointed, because you might miss a lot of features you had in the quake engines/pipelines.

    Like I said I already do work in Source. The reason for me wanting to learn Unreal is nearly purely a academic one - if every game out there used Source then I wouldn't bother, but the reality is, the Unreal engine is quite popular for 3rd party developers.

    Besides, there's a uniquness of style that the Unreal engine offers and that intruiges me. I believe that when you choose a game engine you are not only choosing its features and strengths but you are also commiting to a certain visual style, and like I said, Unreal's intruiges me.

    Hessi, If you want to turn this thread in to an Unreal vs Source debate, then I suggest you go elsewhere because I think you missed the entire point of the thread.

    It is easier to learn because you have a what you see is what you get interface. Unlike source you see the changes right away and that is a lot easier to understand for your average kid than having to type in words or command lines.

    The future of engines is not in graphical power, it is in efficiency, There is going to be a time when every engine on the world is able to render briliant stunningly photo realistic graphics, the only thing that will see the engines apart is from how it achieves its results. Not previewing anything is not a good way to achieve results.

    So because you made a single room with a program or engine you know how it works already? Im not going to critize XSI or lightwave either if the only thing Ive ever made with it was a cube or a sphere. Its logical that if youre new to a program you totally dont know your way around and you are prolly not finding your way through but that doesnt mean that XSI or lightwave or in this case Unreal sucks goats and other mammals. You are just not used to it.

    If you would be you would have known that Unreal doesnt has real time lighting either (unlike you think it has), or in any way not a whole lot of it. Most and in some levels nearly all lighting you see is prerendered lighting baked into lightmaps and vertexlighting. So what exactly is the difference with source? Unreal already previews lighting 100 percent in the editor since 1998!

    Source BSP lighting is great because it uses radiosity crap, but its mesh lighting is a bitch. UE3 automatically unwraps all staticmeshes and renders lightmaps for each staticmesh inside the editor. Or if in case the mesh doesnt require a lightmap then it renders vertexlighting to the mesh and automatically subdivides the mesh according to the lighting near it. Thus you dont have to manually tesselate meshes anymore.

    So, does source do that?

    Pretty certain it DOESN'T automatically subdivide any meshes Peri. That update did see improvements and on large, fairly well tesselated models it can make a world of difference (using one giant model for a big handrail section, for example), but on many models it makes things look worse. Still, at least now you have the OPTION of having proper vertex lighting on models.

    Quote from hessi

    WTF! i gave you some information on where to get learning resources in my first post. so why do you blame me?

    Sorry, perhaps it's my fault for coming from some forums where dragging threads off-topic is frowned upon. I thank you for your help!

    I actually have the bonus DVDs already, as my good friend in the US sent it over to me to learn from when he thought the game he was going to be working on would be in the Unreal engine. I've gone through all the geometry lessons, but it doesn't really teach very much that is technical; just simple 'how to build a quick level' sorta thing.

    The only thing that really puts me off of working in the Unreal engine is.....Unreal. I'm not a fan of that game unfortunately

    Quote from Pericolos0

    I love the source lighting model, and I am willing to cope with the long compile times for it, but for a professional production pipeline these long compile times are pretty bad.

    Its not so bad actually. When I worked on Dark Messiah we used valves VMPI distributed compiler. Everyone in the office had the system installed on their machines and any spare cycles on any of the 50 or so machines were used to compile the our maps. Man it was sooooooo fast.

    I really really miss having that when I am compiling at home

    Edit: Apologies, steering off topic here.

    Merkaba good luck on your unreal en devours. May i suggest you lose the lover for Brushes, as they're becoming rather less needed now Good luck!

    ps. hourence is the main man anything unreal

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