Tutorial - UE3 Basics

Specific Tutorial

Introduction

This tutorial will cover the basics on how to export a model from 3ds Max, import it into Unreal 3, import your textures, create a material and apply it to your mesh.

Tools Needed:
- 3ds Max or Maya (This tutorial is Max based)
- Unreal 3 Engine or the Roboblitz Editor
- Photoshop
- I will assume that you already have a model with textures ready.

There are a few things that make creating Unreal 3 content run a little smoother.

- Use the least amount of smoothing groups possible. Usually I try to get everything down to 1 smoothing group, but when you have a 90 degree angle you usually have to use a second one.

- No overlapping uvs when you create the normal maps, ao, etc. If you have to overlap stuff then move the pieces that overlap out of the grid. (I use chuggnuts uv tools for this)

- Your collision mesh should be as little triangles (polys) as possible. Collision meshes are used to prevent players and vehicles from passing through them. To create collisions, simply take your good model and optimize optimize optimize!

- When in the editor, save and save often! It's terrible when you spend all your time tweaking materials and then loose everything when the editor crashes on you!

- Create notes for tricky areas is always a good idea.

Step 1 - Pre-Export

In Max, working in layers is the easiest way to keep yourself from going crazy when you have a ton of different objects and models. Additionally, keep naming conventions up to date so no time is wasted trying to figure out what object134 or cylinder43 is and what it does for your model.

Layers
Here you can see my layers that are labeled for my game model and my collision model. Collision models should start with UCX_

Collision
My collison mesh alongside my game mesh.

So to get ready to export the game mesh and collision mesh should both be in the center of the grid with the pivot points at (0,0,0) and in the middle of the mesh. (Though this can be changed for certain things depending on what the object is.)

Export
Select your game model and collision mesh and export selected and choose *.ASE file type and match the settings below.

Ok now your mesh is ready to be imported into Unreal 3.

Step 2 - Import

Load Files
So lets open the editor now and import our mesh and texture files.

Locate .ASE
Find the *.ASE file you created earlier and click open to import it.

Name your package.

In the Group area you can create folders within your package and seperate the Textures from Meshes if you want. For this tutorial, I'm just going to put everything into one single package.

Hit OK to move on.

Select Package
Now select your package from the left hand side and you should see your mesh in the window with no textures applied.

Step 3 - Import Textures

Import textures
Now lets import our texture files so we can create our materials.

We import all of our texture files like we did with our mesh EXCEPT with our normal map we will change the Compression Settings to TC_NormalMap instead of TC_Default.

After those are all loaded up you should see all your meshes and textures in the window. Now it's time to create our material for our model.

Right click on a blank area inside the same window where your mesh and textures are and select New Material.

The package window will pop back up now. Make sure you are creating your material in the same package as where your models and textures are at.

Once this is done the Material Editor will open up and will show a blank gray ball and all the different commands to the right.

Keep this window open but go back to our package and select your diffuse map. (Left click it once)

Nodes
Now back in the Material Editor click and drag TextureSample from the list of commands on the right into the node area.

Do this for your normal, diffuse, specular, etc...

Now we need to connect them to the correct nodes. We do this by dragging from the black square to the matching node on the list. (ex. diffuse, specular, normal)

Once all these are done you should have something that looks similiar to this.

In a later tutorial, I will explain more advanced material editor features like Constant and Multiply functions.

Now lets save the material you created by clicking on the green check mark in the menus above (if you are using roboblitz or a newer version of UE3)

Step #4 - Load Materials
After saving your material, close the material editor and then open up your mesh into the Static Mesh Editor / Viewer window.

Yes, there are still no materials on it and it is still ugly as sin. So click on the LODInfo tab to the right and it should expand into another drop down menu. Keep expanding those until you come to [0] with a Material tab.

Apply textures
Select your material from the package (GENERIC) window and back in the Static Mesh Editor click on the apply selected material to mesh button. (Highlighted in image below)

View Textures
Now your mesh should show up in the viewer with the materials applied to it.

Now just save your package before you shut down the editor. Go to File > Save and then save the package as a *.upk file.

And voila! We are done. I hope this helps you guys and gals get a grip on the basics of the Unreal 3 engine.

More tutorials coming soon....

The End

This Tutorial was brought to you by:
Jesse L. Moody