Unreal Editor 3? Yes please. Put down the 56k modem and back away slowly.

Pi Mu Rho

Pi Mu Rho

ValveTime Admin | Enemy of fun
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So, UE3.

Import your mesh and textures - no file conversions (native max .ase exporting) and takes straight TGAs (and PSDs!)

ue3_browser.jpg


Make up some materials visually - no more messing with .vmt files

ue3_materialeditor.jpg


And the end result:

ue3_trship1.jpg


ue3_trship2.jpg


ue3_trship3.jpg


ue3_trship4.jpg


Learning curve? Zero. Took me about 10 minutes.

Valve - are you listening?
 
I want to have sex with it.

I've had my eyes on the Unreal Engine for a while but haven't had a good reason to move over (read: I'm lazy). But I might force my team to move over to UE3 now. The pipeline is like a dream compared to the shit that is Source (IMHO) I've heard.
 
Valve have no clue, I doubt their main aim when making source was to make the engine user friendly to beginners, cool work there man.

I think this and Cry engine 2 are definately going to be more worth the usage on the modding scene.

The only problem, if you can call it that, is with TGA's on there own theres no natural compression. So if your working on a large game/mod it's probably going to be hudge just because of the texture file sizes.
 
clarky003 said:
Valve have no clue, I doubt their main aim when making source was to make the engine user friendly to beginners, cool work there man.

I think this and Cry engine 2 are definately going to be more worth the usage on the modding scene.

The only problem, if you can call it that, is with TGA's on there own theres no natural compression. So if your working on a large game/mod it's probably going to be hudge just because of the texture file sizes.
Click to expand...

If I had the time, I could dig a qoute up with Valve saying that Source will be heaven for modders. But as we know, Valve isnt the best with promises :D
 
Valve's tools are good, but you have to get used to them. It's just that the UE3 tools are so much better.
 
I can't wait to get my hands on the UE3 SDK!

Valve's tools are good but .bsp is a pretty old format which I think they will change come DX10/HL3 (Possibly) time.
 
do you know how good the mapping tools are pi?
 
Yes. If you're used to Hammer and haven't used UnrealEd before, you're in for a nasty surprise :)
 
That editor looks amazing. If only Valve would do something like this, which I hope they will.

I hate the fact that testing a model for Source you have to get it ingame before you know if it looks any good. The primitive compile tools are annoying and time consuming to use, coupled with a model viewer that doesn't even work properly.
 
Pi Mu Rho said:
Yes. If you're used to Hammer and haven't used UnrealEd before, you're in for a nasty surprise :)
Click to expand...

Bah everybody says that...

As far as I know, the only MAJOR difference (WTFz0r? Z0mG!) is the fact that you have to remove "stuff" from the world, as opposed to creating geometry like in Hammer.

God I suck at explaining.
 
Nope. In fact, that's not even true any more. UE3 no longer uses portals (occlusion is done dynamically), and the world is now built using BSP addition rather than subtraction, so it's more like Hammer in that regard.

Where it is completely different is the way you build stuff. You don't make brushes in the way you're used to - you have a "builder" brush that you place, then use that to add to or subtract from the world. The control system is also totally different. It takes some getting used to.
 
I actually first mapped a little in UnrealEd before I switched to Hammer, and Hammer is a lot easier to get a hold on, as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to have a bitch of a time trying to learn to map for UE3.
 
That was a rather epic addition to the thread, Marco.

... pun not intended, on the Epic part
 
delicious.. but is it out?

or do I have to wait for UE3?
 
Here's a video tutorial I made for UnrealEd 3.0 (UT2004 editor). You'll see that it's 100 easier than Hammer. I don't get why people think it's harder. I do some bad things like lowering the lightmap pointlessly, but meh who cares. View it in double-size for decent enough quality.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6215785975206087464&hl=en

I've been messing about in UnrealEd 4 and it a bit quirky with dynamic shadows, but I think that's just because it's a custom RoboBlitz version, or maybe I'm just not doing it properly.

It's a little more complex texturing models now, since you have to make a material for it, but that's easy enough. Terrain is a lot tougher too, with a few more steps needed to make it.

delicious.. but is it out?

or do I have to wait for UE3?
Click to expand...
It comes with RoboBlitz.

Pi Mu Rho said:
Nope. In fact, that's not even true any more. UE3 no longer uses portals (occlusion is done dynamically), and the world is now built using BSP addition rather than subtraction, so it's more like Hammer in that regard.

Where it is completely different is the way you build stuff. You don't make brushes in the way you're used to - you have a "builder" brush that you place, then use that to add to or subtract from the world. The control system is also totally different. It takes some getting used to.
Click to expand...
Actually, I think you can specify if you want to use subtractive or additive when you go to File > New.
 
Yeah, you can. Although the default is addiitive.
 
i love the fact levels in source are rendered with radiosity, witch gives a more realistic lighting and atmosphere then the unreal lighting that looks like doom3.

(UE3 doesnt use radiosity to render the level lighting right ?.. )

-dodo
 
I think the engine uses a simplified form of real time light tracing for light bounces instead.. not sure, maybe I'm dreaming :P because im pretty sure that would bring any computer to it's knees... but yes that is the beauty of the static lighting in source.
 
It uses static lighting as well as dynamic - static lights are baked into the texture when you build the map. I've no idea if they use any form of radiosity or not, though. I shall endeavour to find out.

Edit: OK, I checked and it uses raytraced lightmaps for the static lighting and vertex lighting for the dynamic. So, no radiosity.

But, on the other hand, no compile times either.
 
on a side note, I figured I'd just throw this out there..


I've been getting into programming HL2 weapons through the whole process (texture/model/rig/anim/code) and while the initial curve was a bitch, once we had a good foundation of weapons classes and premade qc scripts I can get a weapon in game working within 20 mins of compiling the final model..


so far the example was brining in a simple model with all shaders.. while I appreciate the real-time nature, I'm curious to see how easily it integrates into the game


if anyone remembers the bitch of dealing with unreal scripts network replication...
 
I'm surprised how well UE3 works on my PC.

Constant 60 fps D:
 
Pi Mu Rho said:
It uses static lighting as well as dynamic - static lights are baked into the texture when you build the map. I've no idea if they use any form of radiosity or not, though. I shall endeavour to find out.

Edit: OK, I checked and it uses raytraced lightmaps for the static lighting and vertex lighting for the dynamic. So, no radiosity.

But, on the other hand, no compile times either.
Click to expand...

VRAD isn't just slow because a runs radiosity calculations - it's slow because it's just a damn slow piece of kit. q3map2's light compiler also did radiosity up to 16 bounces iirc, and did it in a fraction of the time of VRAD
 
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