Sorry this took so long...
How to take a static mesh from the Red Orchestra Editor to a 3D application, and back again.
First,
find the static mesh you want to edit. Select it and press
Ctrl + C.
Next, open up a new map (
File > New...). Alternatively, you could start with a new map open and locate the static mesh through the Static Meshes Browser.
Press
Ctrl + V to copy the desired static mesh into the empty map. Be sure to have the static mesh roughly in the center of the world origin because that is the same world origin in the 3D application. Placing it elsewhere might end up with you spending
MINUTES ON END trying to find it in the 3D app. You can also export multiple static meshes at once by simply placing more of them in the empty map.
Once you have the static mesh(s) in an empty map go to
File > Export...
Give it a
catchy name and save it as a
Wavefront Object (*.obj).
Now
open up your 3D application of choice, I will be using Maya 8.5 but this stuff should translate fairly well to other 3D Apps. If anyone with Max or other 3D app experience wants to fill in some specifics I can add them to this post.
Before opening up the file you should sync up your 3D app and ROEd measurements. To do this in Maya go to
Display > Grid > Grid Options (box icon) and set
Grid Lines Every = 8, and
Subdivisions = 8. This makes every 1 unit square in Maya the same as a 1UU square in ROEd. I believe 3DS Max is synced up with Unreal by default.
Once that is done locate and
open the .obj file.
Modify the static mesh as you see fit. There are a couple things to keep in mind though;
- When you imported the static mesh into the 3D app all verticies became split. To fix this select all verticies on the model and go to
Edit Mesh > Merge. This will weld all the verticies, that are in the same exact location, together. To check if you did this right marquee select over a vertex and see if there is more than one vert present. There should only be one now instead of multiples.
- All collision data will be lost when you export the model from ROEd. To make a new collision model create a simple shape (or shapes) and set the
mesh: name to
MCDCX_Collision. Keep in mind that these shapes are essentially converted into BSP in the editor so you want to make sure they are not touching each other or consist of irregular shapes. Also note that the collision model must be combined into a single shape (see next paragraph).
- If you import several static meshes into the 3D app they will have to be combined before export. In Maya select all meshes at once and go to
Mesh > Combine. Do this with your collision model as well, but do not combine the collision model with the static mesh!
- Static meshes with a negative value in ROEd will often have flipped normals (faces with the texture on the wrong side) in the 3D app. To check for this go to
Display > Polygons > Backface Culling and then look for problematic faces. To fix these faces select them and go to
Normals > Reverse. The easiest way to avoid this problem is to make sure the DrawScale3D settings for the static mesh in ROEd are all set to positive values before exporting it.
- All UV data is saved throughout the import/export process but certain modifications to the mesh will alter the UV map and will need to be corrected. Simple changes such as deleting faces or scaling the mesh as a whole will not distort the UV map.
To add textures to the mesh inside Maya go to
Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade and then
drag the .dds texture files in from your Windows Explorer. The .dds texture files can be exported from ROEd, or you can create your own in PhotoShop. Then
select the faces which will receive this texture, and over in the Hypershade right-click-hold on the texture picture and naviage to
Assign Texture's Material to Selection.
Once you are finished
save the mesh. Next you'll need to
export it as an ASE File (*.ase) using
ActorX. If you already have the ActorX plug-in installed
type in axmesh in the MEL command line and follow the steps for exporting.
Finally,
back in ROEd, open up the
Static Mesh Browser and go to
File > Import...
Locate the model in .ase format and
open it, fill in the Package / Group / Name information and
you're done!
If anyone has corrections, questions, additional information or large sums of money to hand over just let me know. Maybe we could even get a Red Orchestra-specific tutorial sticky thread going.
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