UDK Today (26/01/12)

Today In udk i started finished off the terrain sturcture for my level, I blocked out the buildings that I want to add to one section of the map. I also learned how to add water to a game. It is not as simple as I would have thought. First you must add a plane where you want to add the water and apply the water material to the plane.

Next you must use the builder brush to create a UTwater volume and a post processing volume. The post processing volume allows you to add colour, blur and makes the water feel more realistic for the player.

Today i also created 7 materials in the udk material editor. I done this by adding the textures i made to the content browser and right clicking the blank area and selecting create new material. I then selected one of the textures, went to the material editor, held down t and left clicked this added the texture to the material editor. I repeated then with the normal and connected the images to their corrosponding ports in the editor.

UDK Terrain

Today I created Terrain in UDK. I done this by first creating a new terrain in the tools tab. I set it to 64x64. I feel this should be big enough to suffice. Next I added a skydome. I opened the content browser selected a skydome and added it to my game. Next I added a dominantdirectionallight and lightmass importance volume. Now I could start sculpting my Terrain. I used the paint terrain tools to make hills and mountains. I used the flatten tool to erase hills. I used the smooth tool to create flatter rolling hills or create random peaks and noize. I then added materials to my terrain. I selected the material and added a new layer to my terrain using add new layer using material. Here is a screen shot of my terrain so far.

Materials

Today I started making materials for my 3d game. First I downloaded Images From www.flickr.com like this picture of grass.

Next I opened this image in photoshop and inserted it to a canvas of the right size (512x512 for this one) I then used the offset option to split the image into 4 equal sections and flip them to their opposite side. Next I added a Hue/saturation layer. This allowed me to see the areas that were darker of lighter than others. Next I used the Doge tool to Lighten the areas that were too dark. I used the clone tool to make sure there were no parts standing out that would make the texture look tiled. I then saved the Image as a Targa file (.tga)

Next I opened the image in Crazybump. This gave me many options to create a normal for the Image. WHen I was satisfied with the texture I was making I saved that as a Targa file too.

I then Opened UDK. In udk I opened the content browser and created a new material. Icalled It Grass_Material. I then imported the two images I created. Then in the material editor I added them by holding T and left clicking. I then saved the material and save the package too.

UDK Terrains and Textures.

Today I learned how to make textures using Photoshop and how to make normals using Crazy bump. A normal has height volumes, when its used with a texture it creates a material.

I learned that textures should be made in multiples of 64px. In photoshop you use the filter tab, other and then offset. This allows you to cut the image into 4 parts. Then you swap the pieces with there diagonal opposite. If I reduce the Hue it makes it much easier for me to see the dark and light spots. Then i use the dodge tool to change the dark or light of the image. Next I use the clonestamp tool. This allows me to cover up Lines in the image so there is no visable seam.

I also watched a video of a terrain tutorial today. I learned that terrain is made using brush type tools and static meshes can be painted with a brush too.