Glass, GLASS!! GL-***

[Murphy]

That's a cool idea, ro_sauce! I never even thought of that. *bookmarked*

so basically what you might want to do is alphachannel the edges of the glass shards, then put it as diffuse, then make a flared cubemap (you dont have to take 6 prespective pics, you can just use a corona or something bright for them all and make see which camera space looks best in the env texture) then make the it specific to the masked part of the diffuse texture.
or something like that, i'm kinda trying to do this from memory.

That's how I would have done it too. Here is a tutorial that explains it with pictures and in more detail:
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:Cubemap

You can just follow this tutorial and you'll be fine. Except you can reuse the same corona for multiple sides. You don't need to import them six times with different names. I also suggest using black squares (I think they have to have the same resolution as the corona. I.e. all sides of the cubemap need the same resolution, because I remember crashes when they were different. I could be wrong though) for a few sides instead of just coronas, or textures like the one J.D. suggested!

Once you configured the TexEnvMap to your liking you can blend it over your glass texture with a Shader, like ro_sauce said. I'm just writing down how you do this in a little more detail, just in case:
Put the transparent glass-texture in "Diffuse" and in "Opacity". The Shader should look like your glass-texture now.
Now use the TexEnvMap as its "Specular". It should look like your glasstexture with a very strong shininess now.
Now use an alpha texture as the "SpecularityMask". This controls how visible the shininess is going to be. The more opaque this alpha texture is the more visible the shininess is going to be. You can try your glass-texture here. Works well enough in most cases, but of course you can also use another alpha texture.

 

[gunslingor]

Ok J.D.,

THats dam near perfect, but not quite right. So, I set it up in my map exactly as you have done and it looked dam near perfect in udk ide. Then when I played it, it only looked transpartent with no reflections. Again, it looked dam near perfect in udk editor. So why doesn't game play work but the editor does?

So, then I tried your map. Added a player start, cash pickup, and light, i wouldnt even start the game without those, it ended in an exception. After adding those, the game would startup and im taken to the usual game loby player start screen and everything is fine. Then I press the ready start button and it freezes, and when i say it freezes that biotch freezes. The windows key usually works to get out of crashes, but not here, you have to end it in task manager. So, how do we get this to work in your glass example map?

A few more questions:

what is texenvymap exactly?
How was the corona map made, why is it RGB8, thought KF only took bmps and tgas or something?

 

[gunslingor]

Also in udk editor, i need to make the reflections a bit more square, less rounded, but still a bit fuzzy on the edges. I assume all I need to do is edit the coronoa but dont have the confidence yet since I don't really understand how a 2D file gets turned into that 3d and variable transparancy light.

 

[gunslingor]

oh yeah, and you can see a real world picture of the original light in this picture behind the new age tiny tim looking fellow. I need to add that little lite in there, i have the light setup and it fits in there, but how do i get it to shine through the mesh?

-collison off, nvm

 

[gunslingor]

I'm actually starting to get happy with it as is, except how do i make the corona visible at any distance?:

 

[ro_sauce]

light props->lighting->lightradius=some bigger number

 

[J.D.*]

Ok J.D.,

THats dam near perfect, but not quite right. So, I set it up in my map exactly as you have done and it looked dam near perfect in udk ide. Then when I played it, it only looked transpartent with no reflections. Again, it looked dam near perfect in udk editor. So why doesn't game play work but the editor does?

So, then I tried your map. Added a player start, cash pickup, and light, i wouldnt even start the game without those, it ended in an exception. After adding those, the game would startup and im taken to the usual game loby player start screen and everything is fine. Then I press the ready start button and it freezes, and when i say it freezes that biotch freezes. The windows key usually works to get out of crashes, but not here, you have to end it in task manager. So, how do we get this to work in your glass example map?

Hmm seems the opacity map for some reason was cancelling out the specular. Heres a workaround I use for most of my shaders anyways. Now it works in game. As for the "freezing" I get it too when I launch from the editor but it seems to be common and loads after a minute or so. I think dropping in an ammo box or something fixes it.. idk.

Spoiler!

Heres the map again to study the material setup.

http://www.gamefront.com/files/20041842/GlassEx_2.rar

Keep in mind, the method Im using now, the reflection will only react to light. (which is how it should be)

A few more questions:

what is texenvymap exactly?
How was the corona map made, why is it RGB8, thought KF only took bmps and tgas or something?

The editor supports alot of file formats, compressed or non compressed. In the texture browser go to import, then to the right it lists the supported formats. The corona didnt have any alpha so you can compress it in the editor to dxt1 or leave it as is.

The corona was made in PS, soft round brush, inner glow and outer glow, blurred. It was just an example of what you can put in there. The editor I know has some coronas in some of the other packages.

Tex Env Map, Murphy linked you to a good site which is http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/MaterialsEnvironmentMaps.html

You drop the cubemap into the texenvmap and that gives you the cool reflection.

Edit : As far as it not working with the original shader setup, If I remember right (been awhile) I ran into this problem before when I was using opacity, spec and self illum altogether. I ended up just using separate textures for all the different maps that had alpha channels.

 

[gunslingor]

light props->lighting->lightradius=some bigger number

yeah, i know that control, but that makes the corona bigger. problem is that the cornona controls aren't acurate. When I enter 9 for minimum radius, it should be 9 from half a mile away, but it aint. I mean, i just a freakin light filiment... you can see a glowing filament from quite a large distance away.

thanks for all the great info follks.

 

[Fel]

yeah, i know that control, but that makes the corona bigger. problem is that the cornona controls aren't acurate. When I enter 9 for minimum radius, it should be 9 from half a mile away, but it aint. I mean, i just a freakin light filiment... you can see a glowing filament from quite a large distance away.

thanks for all the great info follks.

Dont forget you can shape the corona too by changing its texture

 

[gunslingor]

thanks

thanks

Ok Jd, finally got everything set up in there, dont understand it all, it's like a combination lock or something... seems it has to be combined and shaded just right. Anyway, thanks. I think its almost done. 2 things left to do to that dam lamp, make it a bit shinyer and make the corona visible from any distance, just tweaking i think. Thats guys. I'll post a pick when the tweaks are done

 

[gunslingor]

Thank you all!!!

Thank you all!!!

Looks great and done, thanks all!!!!!

 

[ro_sauce]

the whole thing is glass?

i could probably make it so you can do multiple texture for it, like brass fixture+glass baubles, just gotta assign the material id's and export as multisubobject.

 

[gunslingor]

the base will eventually get changed to metal, but its low priority, i still have months work of work to do.

 

[ro_sauce]

okey doke, it looks good so far.