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Level Design UnrealEd Tips and Tricks

As far as Ive been watching in the tutorials Terrain are created from a kind of displacement map...but is it possible to create the terrain from a mesh? I mean...can I use a imported ASE to turn it into the terrain?
Do ASEs contain info about polygon clusters?
If so...how many clusters can contain the mesh?
Do ASEs contain info about the texture projection and asigned texture or only geometry?
If so...will the UnrealEd look for the texture in the absolute path or do I need to set a copy of the texture?
If so where?
Whats the average poly-count for common object as houses or trees?
Does UnrealEd shading support reflections?
What materials are avaivable fot the shading?

Im sorry that these are many questions but I find the UnrealEd a modelling/mapping tool quite slow compared to XSI...so I would like to quickly make that kind of things under my 3D package and just the finish the lighting and other stuff on UnrealEd

Thxs in advance

Thxs in advance
 
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Whoa.. lotta questions there.. i'll answer a few from teh top of my head.

Im sorry that these are many questions but I find the UnrealEd a modelling/mapping tool quite slow compared to XSI...so I would like to quickly make that kind of things under my 3D package and just the finish the lighting and other stuff on UnrealEd
Don't use the SDK as a modelling tool.. make your models in a 3d app and import them into the editor. I believe UDN's ActorX page lists a plugin for XSI.

Do ASEs contain info about the texture projection and asigned texture or only geometry?
If so...will the UnrealEd look for the texture in the absolute path or do I need to set a copy of the texture?
If so where?
What you do is import your mesh into the editor. Then Import your texture(s) into the editor.
Then assign the texture to the mesh's texture slots in the editor.

As far as Ive been watching in the tutorials Terrain are created from a kind of displacement map...but is it possible to create the terrain from a mesh? I mean...can I use a imported ASE to turn it into the terrain?
Yes, you can create Static Mesh and use it as terrain, and not have to use the actual 'SDK Terrain' tool etc... Be aware you have to incorporate Karma collision if you do it this way (terrain automatically has karma collision). Search UDN for information on Static Meshes and Karma collision.


Does UnrealEd shading support reflections?
What materials are avaivable fot the shading?
ROEd mimics reflections using Cube Maps. Check UDN for info on what they are and how they are created.

Do ASEs contain info about polygon clusters?
If so...how many clusters can contain the mesh?
I'm not sure what a 'polygon cluster' is? Perhaps someone more versed with 3d terms can help you out.

Whats the average poly-count for common object as houses or trees?
Off hand, not sure. Check them in the SDK. Most houses are not a single Static Mesh, but rather a BSP building block with static mesh decorations. This is done for optimization and lighting purposes.


If your SDK is taking a long time to load, you don't need to load it from the Steam menu. You can simply create a shortcut to it and launch that way.
 
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From the Mapper's Cheatsheet thread by Divinehammer:
" RO SDK Measures
---------------
ROScale
1 meter = 60.352 UUs
1 foot = 18.4UU

Kneeling Rifle Rest height
64uu
Standing Rifle Rest Height
96uu
Common building interior Heights
128uu
160uu (Good Common)
192uu

Prone Opening Dimensions

Crouch Opening Dimensions

SDK Shortcuts
O = turns off volumes
F= Turns off/on Fog
K= Turns off/on Sky portal

ruler (in uu's) key combo is shift+ctrl+middle mouse button
Shift+b select a side selects all sides of a brush
Alt + RClick of a texture loads that texture in the ready
Select a static mesh Ctrl+W duplicates that mesh
Ctrl+Alt+Shift allows you to draw a loop around several objects and select them.

Map Optimization:
Stock Maps Have these standards as reported in the forum
AP : from 3 to 34 on the level.
max SM triangles : from 40 000 up to 120 000+
max SM rendering time : from 2ms to 6ms

Stat all from the console will bring up all info on your map.
Stat FPS shows your frames per second in editor and in game.
Stat Render Shows all info pertaining to rendering the scene you are looking at.

For staticmeshes outside the playable area you should turn all of the collision properties to false and bShadowCast to false as well.
Unrealed plays nicer when you use powers of 2 when you build. Ex.
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768"
 
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Aye I think that has something to with how the meshes where created in the modeling program (center, rotation, pivot?)

Anyways you can't really avoid this and it felt to me like the rotation of meshes is sometimes very random.

The rotation of meshes is much improved in the new editor another reason why not to give a crap about outdated software :eek:
 
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Nah, it even happens to StaticMeshes that are made in the editor and to those that come with the game. It has to do with how the rotation works. Appearantly UnrealEd uses a strange method of rotating them so it runs into a mathematical problem that causes this, so supposedly it's not even a real bug...

As strange as this may sound, but I find it more comfortable to rotate StaticMeshes and the like with numbers in their properties. Go to Movement -> Rotation. You can enter pitch, yaw and roll values. 16384 is 90
 
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