original model inside trueSpace
model inside ut3 test map - Scorpion shown in the background
click for video - 1Mb, wmv, 15sec
modeling the vehicle
Update: April 12 2009, use psk/psa plugin for trueSpace instead of Collada
This page is a documentation of the steps I took to get a driveable vehicle into Unreal Tournament 3(ut3) game using trueSpace7.6 for modeling and animation. The vehicle is based on the Roamer from the 70's Saturday morning show called ArkII. As I learn more I plan to update this document.
Build the vehicle facing in the +X direction with wheels on the ground plane. The wheels need to be modeled at their maximum extension downward from the vehicle to allow for compression simulated shocks inside unreal.
I try to avoid the pivot tool since it can throw the export result off.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/SVehicleCreation.html#SVehicle%20Creation
image maps - uv, diffuse,specular,normal
While developing the textures I found that the texture compression option on the Inputbitmap node can be a bad thing and it can throws colors off creating a lot of noise. A transparency map was also created but I later found out the the ut3 scorpion vehicle templates didn't support transparency maps. The uv map can not have overlapping areas for the normal map to work properly. I generated normal maps for the tires, seats and a few other areas and combined the result in photoshop. The normal map generator failed to produce a proper map in some cases. The solution was to take the mesh into model side, do a point edit with undo. I combined all the meshes into one mesh after the normal mapping was complete. Make sure there are no stray vertices by selecting all the faces, convert the selection to vertices, invert the selection and delete.
trueSpace normal mapper script and notes
Update: April 12 2009, use psk/psa plugin for trueSpace instead of Collada
This page is a documentation of the steps I took to get a driveable vehicle into Unreal Tournament 3(ut3) game using trueSpace7.6 for modeling and animation. The vehicle is based on the Roamer from the 70's Saturday morning show called ArkII. As I learn more I plan to update this document.
Build the vehicle facing in the +X direction with wheels on the ground plane. The wheels need to be modeled at their maximum extension downward from the vehicle to allow for compression simulated shocks inside unreal.
I try to avoid the pivot tool since it can throw the export result off.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/SVehicleCreation.html#SVehicle%20Creation
image maps - uv, diffuse,specular,normal
While developing the textures I found that the texture compression option on the Inputbitmap node can be a bad thing and it can throws colors off creating a lot of noise. A transparency map was also created but I later found out the the ut3 scorpion vehicle templates didn't support transparency maps. The uv map can not have overlapping areas for the normal map to work properly. I generated normal maps for the tires, seats and a few other areas and combined the result in photoshop. The normal map generator failed to produce a proper map in some cases. The solution was to take the mesh into model side, do a point edit with undo. I combined all the meshes into one mesh after the normal mapping was complete. Make sure there are no stray vertices by selecting all the faces, convert the selection to vertices, invert the selection and delete.
trueSpace normal mapper script and notes