3D & Animation A few Maya Q's

[Lt_Kettch]

I woke up one day and thought: Hey it would be great if you could built your on meshes because the stock ones get boring very fast (especially if you browse the same package for the thousads time).

So I downloaded the PLE and the 3DBuzzz VTMs and so far I like Maya it looks quite handy and it is exactly that what I was looking for but I am stuck, I need help.

The problem is that Maya (b1tch) is a really complex program and so is UnrealED and I feel that the tutorials don't explain too well how to get stuff from Maya in the game/editor. The actual modeling is not too hard.

My first major problem is that the ActorX plugin refuses to work or any other custom plugin att all. When I try to load it, the feedback command line tells me that something wasn't found (the procedure/routine). The standard fixes from the UDN page where you can download the plugin didn't help and google only brought me to forums where people described the same problem but noone came up with a solution .

That sucks so far.

Am I right that without plugins I can't even open .obj or .ase files?

Are there good tutorials which could help me? Many Maya tutorials are not very well suited for game developers or Unreal geeks.

I think understood the basic textureing workflow but a summarizing tutorial would be nice.

What I need is a guideline how to use Maya with UnrealED I think that should do it unitl I find something else what is holding me back.

 

[[TW]DrGuppy]

I did outline a few key points in this post about getting statics from ROEd > Maya > back to ROEd but until you get ActorX working I think you're stuck.

Have you checked to see if the plug-in is loaded? You can do this by going to Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager and then checking Loaded and Auto Load.

I've just turned off ActorX and .obj files are loading fine. Also, you cannot open .ase files with Maya as far as I know.

For texturing you need to use the Hypershade (Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade). Simply drag a file (normally in .dds format) in from your Windows Explorer into the Textures tab in the Hypershade and then right-click-hold (with your object or some faces selected) over the texture and pick Assign Texture's Material to Selection. If the texture doesn't show up on the model press 6 on your keyboard and it should be displayed. You can change the UVs with the Create UVs menu and the UV Editor (Window > UV Texture Editor).

To export the model out of Maya type in axmesh in the MEL command line (bottom left) and press Enter. Export it out as .ase and then import that file from the Static Mesh Browser in ROEd.

Let me know if you're still having problems.

 

[Capt.Marion]

I don't know Maya...
Use 3ds Max... a lot of tutorials are very good and you can learn easly and faster!

Price is quite prohibitive, though...

 

[worluk]

Even though i started with Maya myself, i would advise you to have a look at Max. Even more so when you plan to continue work with any Unreal Engine stuff. It simply is what they used. For UT3 the rigs come in Max format, the RO rigs are max files, even UEd4 orientates on Max in many aspects from the brief look i had yet.

 

[UncleDrax]

Even though i started with Maya myself, i would advise you to have a look at Max. Even more so when you plan to continue work with any Unreal Engine stuff. It simply is what they used. For UT3 the rigs come in Max format, the RO rigs are max files, even UEd4 orientates on Max in many aspects from the brief look i had yet.

I concurr.. if I had the time/motivation to re-learn Max, I would. Frankly I recommend anyone starting learn on Max.

That said; with the Maya PLE, you can't really do much. You -can- get the PLE version of an ActorX plugin to export to into UnrealEd, but pretty much little else.

I'd recommend grabbing GMax, or some other (free) 3d Modeller..

If you are SURE you want to get Maya, look if you qualify for Educational Pricing (details available on the Autodesk site).

 

[Lt_Kettch]

I posted my question in a German forum they should be able to help me.

I will stick with the PLE for now since I don't need anything else than an app to produce Unreal meshes but I don't mind learning 3DMax in the future if Maya won't work and/or I find the end of the rainbow ...

 

[Lt_Kettch]

I made it work, will post screenies of my work in the future

 

[Lt_Kettch]

A couple of new questions

How do I define from which side my textures are visible? At the moment they are visible from both sides in Maya but the wrong side in Unreal.

How do I create new packages? Something with UCC? Or can I simply save something in a package which will be created then ... (EDIT: Found out how it works )

My Alphas tend to get a black frame in UnrealEd, I want to get rid of them.

 

[UncleDrax]

A couple of new questions

How do I define from which side my textures are visible? At the moment they are visible from both sides in Maya but the wrong side in Unreal.

My Alphas tend to get a black frame in UnrealEd, I want to get rid of them.

(Disclaimer: I might be using a different version of maya, menus may appear different)
1- You can turn off BackFace rendering, should be in the View Options for the panel you're in.
1a - You can also enable 'View Normals' (forget which actual menu it's on...but it was a top-pull-down for the main interface when set to 'Modelling', this will draw lines on each face indicating which way the normal is pointing, in there is also the option ot Flip normal so you can fix it...

1.PS: You've probably noticed, but depending how you model your objects, they may end up being entirely 'inside out' when imported.. it happens, just select your faces and flip the normals.. pretty easy. Also make sure you Trianglulate your mesh.. you can probably use the ActorX 'auto-triangulate' option, but I perfer to just do it in Maya so I can see any issues that might arise.

2- I've noticed sometimes depending on what options you are setting when you save a Targa, you can get some strange results. I use GIMP and I believe I turn OFF 'RLE Compression'.

 

[Lt_Kettch]

Thanks for your tips Uncle Drax but I don't think they are helping me with my current probs

I made a simple mesh from a tube (or cylinder) which I want to use as the horizon

You can see only one side in UnrealED --> the outside which is crap

I used the Cylindrical Mapping tool from Maya to make the UVs (the UV texture editor is kinda confusing without a manual ) and in Maya I see the textures from both sides

Other with textures I am fine so far ...


Ninja EDIT before post: Bwah if I select Two Sided from the texture properties of the texture, the texture gets displayed on both sides which is good and bad. Good because it works and bad for the performance (possibly) the texture 4096x512 big

EDIT2: Got it perfectly woking now

 

[Lt_Kettch]

Is there a way to delete the UVs?

I made something wrong at one point (basically I am just guessing what to do) and now I have the wrong texture on the wrong faces and Maya doesn't want to change that (some weird error message). I need a fresh start

And is it possible to look up how many materials the mesh has?

EDIT: NEvermind fixed it but don't ask me how