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Material Editor Keyboard Shortcuts

September 5, 2011 / posted in Cheat Sheets, General, Materials, Unreal / No Comments

Posted these shortcuts a while ago at Eat3D (http://www NULL.eat3d NULL.com). I though I would repost them here to share with anyone who doesn’t frequent that site. If you aren’t though you should. They have amazing video tutorials.

Material Editor Shortcut Keys

Num Key 1 1 variable constant

Num Key 2 2 variable constant

Num Key 3 3 variable constant

Num Key 4 4 variable constant

E key Power node

R key Reflection Vector

T key Texture Sample

U key TexCoord

I key If node

O key 1-x node

P key Panner node

A key Add node

S key Param ‘None’ (0) node

D key Divide node

L key Lerp node

C key Mask (R G) node

V key Param ‘None” (0,1,2,3)

B key BumpOffset node

N key Normalize node

M key Multiply node

Unreal Unit Meshes – “UBlocks”

August 23, 2011 / posted in Cheat Sheets, Maya, Modeling, Unreal / No Comments

After digging into the 2DPlatformerStarterKit (http://udn NULL.epicgames NULL.com/Three/DevelopmentKitGemsPlatformerStarterKit NULL.html) I began thinking about how I should go about creating my 2D test level. This level would be a staging ground for all sorts of pre-production tests. Things like lightning, particle systems, and mesh design would all be roughed out here. I always find if hard to visualize what sizes my meshes should be while working in Maya.  I was thinking that a quick way to rough out the size of a level and it’s meshes would be to use pre sized blocks like LEGO (http://www NULL.delightning NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/legos NULL.jpg).

I’ve made several different sizes of cube type meshes that area all using the same parent material. Each square on the grid texture represents 64 units in the Unreal engine. If your Maya grid isn’t setup  to work with the UDK change your grid settings to match these values…

Maya to UDK Grid Settings - Length and Width:2000 Grid Lines Every:64 Subdivisions:8

(http://www NULL.delightning NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/ublocksweb NULL.jpg)

UBlocks in default UDK Scene

The material network is pretty self explanatory, but I’ll go over it quick. There is a texture coordinate node that is being multiplied my a custom parameter node. This lets you control the parameter node’s value separately in all instances of this material. The “U” and “V” coordinates in the “Texture Coordinate” node are represented in the texture by red and green. Multiplying this node’s output will multiply each color channel in the texture. Increasing the value of red and green will tile the material. The new multiplied red and green values are then plugged into the grid texture’s UV input.

Shader network for UBlock parent material (http://www NULL.delightning NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/ublocks_mat NULL.jpg)

Shader network for UBlock parent material

Download UBlocks - I don’t mind if you redistribute the meshes with your projects, but please link this post or include the original ZIP file in your download.

UDK Platform Starter Kit Scene Scale

August 13, 2011 / posted in Cheat Sheets, General, Unreal / No Comments

I was checking out the Unreal Developer Network (http://udn NULL.epicgames NULL.com) last night and found out they’ve released what is essentially a template for a 2D platformer (http://udn NULL.epicgames NULL.com/Three/DevelopmentKitGemsPlatformerStarterKit NULL.html). My brain just about exploded when I saw this. I’ve been trying to code my own bare bones 2D platform game class for quite some time, but most of my skills are geared towards art. I did however purchase the Introduction to Unreal Script (http://www NULL.eat3d NULL.com/unrealscript) from Eat3D.com (http://www NULL.eat3d NULL.com/). It helped me setup a proper development environment for the UDK, but I found the technical depth quite shallow. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me given that it’s an introduction :\

At any rate the documentation for the kit is pretty decent and if you have a basic understanding of level design you should be able to jump right in and start building your own levels and swapping characters. Before I went to work today I took some measurements of an in game shot to get an idea of the mesh sizes I’ll need to create in Maya. If you’ve never created anything for the Unreal Development Kit in Autodesk Maya then the first thing you will want to do is adjust your scene scale. Here is a YouTube video (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/user/jonathanvillaverde#p/u/18/v62ZJhryFP4) from Jonathan Villaverde’s channel (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/user/jonathanvillaverde) to help you get that done.

Default 2D Scale Measurements for UDK 2D Platformer Kit (http://www NULL.delightning NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/ScalePlatform2D NULL.jpg)

Default 2D Scale Measurements for UDK 2D Platformer Kit

UDK Interface Diagram

July 13, 2011 / posted in Cheat Sheets, General, Unreal / No Comments

Pretty self explanitory. This diagram labels all the components in the Unreal Development Kit user interface. This version isn’t taken from the newest release of the UDK, but I will be updating this to the June beta release soon.

Unreal Development Kit User Interface Diagram (http://www NULL.delightning NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/udk_interface NULL.jpg)

Unreal Development Kit User Interface Diagram

UDK Scale Chart

July 11, 2011 / posted in Cheat Sheets, General, Unreal / No Comments

Here’s a scale chart to help you visualize things when you’re moving around in the Unreal Development Kit. Its set against assets from the Unreal Tournament III Game. The white numbers are Unreal grid dimensions. An average character is ~96 units high. To learn how to setup your Maya grid for proper scale see this this succinct  Youtube Video (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=Xl5kJP02K0g). Peace.

Unreal Development Kit Scale Chart (http://www NULL.delightning NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/udk-scale NULL.jpg)

Unreal Development Kit Engine Scale Guide

Colour Temperature Tests

April 5, 2011 / posted in Cheat Sheets, General, Maya / 1 Comment

Just a quick post here. I took my apartment scene from earlier and rendered it out with a range of light temperatures. The chart below will show you 10 separate renders at varying colour ranges. I just changed the mib_blackbody value in each of the renders. You should keep in mind that some of these colours will never get as bright as they are seen here. An example would be the first temperature shot @ 1800K. This is the colour for match flame. You would never have a room lit this bright with just matches. I think for artistic reasons it does serve a purpose to see the end result of such a setup. Enjoy.

Colour Temperature Chart using area lights and mib_black body in Maya (http://www NULL.delightning NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/temperature-chart NULL.jpg)
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