Just as the post name states, I have nothing to actually show for this post. Perhaps later in the week I will have more pretty pictures of tutorials I completed. Well, I suppose the place to start is where I left off last post: the high-detail, low-poly plane. One of the biggest problems I am having with the second part, I finished the first already, is I want to use a completely different set of software than the tutorial. Though I have tried the image editing software the tutorial uses, the price tag is very high, so I found a free alternative. However, not everything lines up perfectly, and I can say you do get what you pay for in this circumstance. That being said, I am going to continue with the free image editing software for the time being until I can actually afford the pricey alternative Another problem I found was the tutorial does not use UDK like I though but rather Unity, something I hope never to have to touch. So when I get to it, I will try to export it to UDK.
Now that looks like I did not do much, and that would be fairly truthful, at least for that tutorial. What I did do was get familiar with the new 3D modeling software, which is much like the debate I am having over which image editing software to use. Though in this debate the new, free software actually has a few advantages over the old software. One of the big ones is that the software will generate a UV map and while this does not sound like much, that is actually quite nice compared to making one in the old software. Note that while I have not actually unwrapped a UV on one of my models, I watched two tutorials on how to do so and practiced on a cube. One little annoyance I have is that scaled geometry keeps the UV points relative to their position before scaling. That may sound weird but here is what I mean: Say you have a cube and unwrap it, you would get the normal t shape. But let us say you did not unwrap it and instead scaled the Y and Z dimensions by one quarter and the X by three, leading to something that would be like a 6" by 6" by 6' piece of lumber (I was trying to make a pallet and that was to be the middle beams). I was expecting the unwrap to produce four rectangles and two square, but what ended up happening is the UV map for the cube was generated. With a bit of work, I manage to determine it was the scaling that did that, since moving the vertices to the same locations unwrapped in the proper form.
One of the bug advantages, since the new 3D modeling software is open source, the interface to export to other software is very open. So exporting to UDK only required a small python script. I watched several tutorials on how to move models from the 3D modeler to UDK so they would have the proper material, collision boxes and light maps. This just means that if I do decide on UDK, moving the models to it would be very easy, at least that is what it looked like. I will probably make my final decision about what software I am using at the same time, buying whatever licenses at that time. Currently I am looking into several engines, though I only have two installed at the moment, a few image editing software since I am not sure I completely like the free one I just started using, and a few 3D modeling programs, but mostly the two I have been suing, trying to decide if it is worth putting that much into the project or to just use the free alternative. Well, probably nothing definitive on those choices any time soon, so until the end of the week,
~gunnah
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