Roman City - First UDK Project

[Jenn0_Bing]

Now I'm done with my Uni course I decided it would be a good time to really get to grips with the UDK, I also wanted to make better use of some of the work I produced at Uni. I originally wanted to produce the Uni work I am experimenting with in UDK in the first place, but as it was a group project I was outvoted. This is a bit of an experiment to see how it could have gone if we had utilised UDK.

I've spent the last week or so getting my first set of assets in and getting to grips with the whole asset importing process, and some very basic level stuff. Here's a pic just to pretty the thread up, but it's not a lot to show just yet.

I have run in to a few problems already, and it would be great to get some advice as to solutions. A couple are probably down to lightmap/lightmass issues, but I've expended my limited knowledge and my searches turn up blanks. Firstly I am getting odd shading on the edges of my road modules. These go away if I delete the undersides of my mesh in max, but I'm not sure if that's a good practice, most similar Epic assets I looked at are all sealed meshes. They get worse if I reduce the lightmap scale, but I don't think padding is the issue as I have large spaces between islands on my lightmap UV.

Secondly what's up with these odd blobs in my shadows? I've tried making a completely new lightmap, even an auto-generated one but they always end up there. Changing the lightmap scale does little to help here either. This was with a production quality compile too.

Similary to the first 2, with this problem, I'm sure there's something simple. The problem appears to be down to how I've UV'd my modules, the shading errors appear where the islands of my UV's are rotated and flipped differently on most assets. Does UDK not like you doing this? I guessed not, but then on other assets, such as the corner pieces of the portico it seems to be in-editor rotation causing the issue.

The first shot I showed has normal maps disabled on all the materials that show glaring errors, but I'd quite like to be able to use them

Any input or suggestions appreciated

[Froyok]

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76476

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77539

http://vimeo.com/21678686

And what is your actual lightmap size on you mesh (with the strange shadows) ?

Remenber that bsp surface don't work like mesh lightmap. On bsp the lesser the number is and better the shadow quality will be.

On a mesh, the lightmap size is the texture size of the lightmap, greater number equal finer shadows.

[Jenn0_Bing]

Awesome thanks Froyok, that video cleared up the worst of the problem. My normals were already in order, it was just down to misaligned UV islands with the pixels of the lightmap.

On those building pieces I am currently using a lightmap scale of 128 on the roof and 256 on the wall. I've tried increasing the resolution, even up to 1024 ( ) but it doesn't seem to change anything, the blobs just get sharper edges.

[Bunglo]

Might help assuming it's a lightmap problem:

http://www.3dmotive.com/product-udk-lightmaps

[Jenn0_Bing]

Right, so after sorting the seam issues between modules I turned my attention back to the normal map issues. I knew it was probably going to be a n00b mistake, and it was. Now after actually setting up my normal map textures properly it fixed both of my first two problems. The next stage is to create my road layout, and start populating the city with it's various landmarks, then to fill the spaces with generic buildings.

For anyone else who may suffer the same mistakes I did I just had to make sure they were set to tc_normaluncompressed, SRGB to false and Unpack Min to -1. I'm a little baffled as to how I managed to miss this info, even following a few tutorials on material creation. In general these tutorials often seem to skip what settings to use when importing textures.

[Froyok]

For anyone else who may suffer the same mistakes I did I just had to make sure they were set to tc_normaluncompressed, SRGB to false and Unpack Min to -1. I'm a little baffled as to how I managed to miss this info, even following a few tutorials on material creation. In general these tutorials often seem to skip what settings to use when importing textures.

Most of the time you doesn't need to set this in the texture, because if you choose correctly at the import the option "TC_Normalmap" for the compression settings, it will set these values by default.

So, I guess you have made a little mistake and chosen a wrong option while the import ?

(Or sometimes the UDK fuck your import and forgot to set the values, rare but happen)

[Jenn0_Bing]

Whew, slow going on this, occasionally to the point of frustration. But I guess that's just what learning a new Engine does to a project. Really feel like I'm getting into the swing of things with UDK now, it's benefits are beginning to show through.

Spent the time since my last post working on redoing my road modules to allow for greater flexibility than before, should also help with any pieces I might need to produce in the future. I've also done some work on the building pieces, created some new bits as well as made a 75% version to create some smaller structures with. Next I am going to create a few detail assets to flesh the space out with a bit.

Can I create meshes with multiple skins similar to source? For example my buildings use 2 versions of the same mesh at the moment, 1 with a red stripe on the bottom and 1 without on the top. Would be neat if there was a way I could make this one mesh with the two texture options. I haven't found anything on the UDN which would work like I wan't/would expect.

[Serenius]

You can create a second material with the different colors (or create a Material Instance Constant with a color adjustment - which is cheaper on performance), then assign that material to the model under its property options. No need to remake the entire model.

[Froyok]

Or just drag and drop your material on the mesh you want !

(Or right click > assign this material)

[Jenn0_Bing]

Thanks for the tips guys. The problem I have though, is I went for using tiling materials as so many assets share the same textures, this means I only want to change 1 of 5 materials between the two models. Drag and drop apply's that 1 material to the whole model which wont do. I was hoping for something similar to source where you can assign multiple groups of textures to a model and then select them when you place the prop in hammer. Seems what I'm doing currently may be the best method I guess.

[Pampers]

If you are using 3ds max, you can assign a multi-sub material to the model before exporting and change the material IDs on the model

[Serenius]

You should be able to do something along those lines. I remember when working in the Gears editor all the florescent lights of many shapes and sizes all used the same material.

[Jenn0_Bing]

Yeah, I have the shared materials going just fine, multi-sub as Pampers pointed out. I was just hoping there would be somewhere I could add materials to a prop in groups. All my searching I've done hasn't turned up anything suitable so I guess it's not possible in the way I was expecting.

Started on some decorative meshes these last few days. First a set of pieces to construct walls, and then got started on the gardens themselves. Got a set of Garden path pieces modelled up and some pieces to create the box hedges, a favourite of the Romans.

Going to do some large shrubs and trees next. As well as some prettier flowery things to add some colour to the space.

[Jenn0_Bing]

Long time no update, summer has been rather getting in the way this past week . Was suggested I should add some geometry to the roofs over at Polycount so that has been done, I think it was worth the effort. Also new less noisy plaster material.

[Mazy]

The detailing on the roof makes a huge difference, looks a lot better. Before the roofs looked like something from a CS 1.6 map