Getting into Unreal

Post Reply
User avatar
Draise
Captain
Posts: 3198
Joined: 21 Sep 2009, 19:33
Type the number ten into the box: 0
Location: Bogota, Colombia
Contact:

Getting into Unreal

Post by Draise »



I finally learnt how to make a shadow rig in Softimage, and export it with animation to Unreal Engine, and learn how to setup some cameras.

Man! Such a strange workflow, but.. it works.

The render times make me drool.

I need better video card for better AA.....
User avatar
clintonman
Captain
Posts: 5422
Joined: 21 May 2009, 21:08
Type the number ten into the box: 0
Location: California
Contact:

Re: Getting into Unreal

Post by clintonman »

What's a shadow rig?
Clinton Reese

http://clintons3d.com
User avatar
Draise
Captain
Posts: 3198
Joined: 21 Sep 2009, 19:33
Type the number ten into the box: 0
Location: Bogota, Colombia
Contact:

Re: Getting into Unreal

Post by Draise »

It's a minimalistic FK rig made from chains/bones/nulls that has no underlying IK to it. You tie it with constraints to your dynamic FK/IK rig with all it's bells and whistles in the software like Softimage, then ONLY export the shadow rig to the FBX. Due to the nature of Softimage with Global and Local matrices, the FBX has one local matrix at 0,0,0 and all the nulls will animate "globally" accordingly, all in FK - meaning all the cool dynamic rig stuff that you build to animate easily with won't translate to the FBX - also due to the fact that some systems and programming within the rig either through ICE or constraints won't preserve itself in the FBX.

When you export, you bake the animation from the constraints to your shadow rig, and with that you import to Unreal with minimal errors (as FBX's can't have constraints or IK handle type animations for example). Thus.. a "shadow" rig.

Now for something like trueSpace, which I haven't tried, the FBX rigs probably should work as is. They have an FK rig with IK handles, but ultimately each joint records it's values as if it were FK, and maybe the animation exports perfectly fine. trueSpace doesn't have a very good constraint system though the dynamic rigging system is really user friendly and simple that the IK/FK handles and controls are very straight forward - the only thing missing would be constraints, but the anchors could do the trick if needs be. Now.. come to think of it, the rigging concepts of trueSpace really is what I consider how rigging should be, concernin the UI, visuals and the way you make the IK/FX rigs quickly and easily... if it only were finessed.
User avatar
Draise
Captain
Posts: 3198
Joined: 21 Sep 2009, 19:33
Type the number ten into the box: 0
Location: Bogota, Colombia
Contact:

Re: Getting into Unreal

Post by Draise »



Good lord, trying to get the lighting in Unreal is not as straight forward as trueSpace by a long shot!!!!

Took me days to try get the lighting working. And I realized.. once you iterate, it's not as "live" as you'd think. You have to pre-calculate a lot of the lighting to get the final result - not really represented in the viewport at all times - unlike trueSpace.

Blog Post

So.. just so you know.. to get nice soft shadows.... make sure you have a high Light Map on said geometry, or world - have large radius. Make sure it's Static or Stationary, Bake your lighting, then move the viewport (it won't update automatically). Realtime beauty results.
User avatar
clintonman
Captain
Posts: 5422
Joined: 21 May 2009, 21:08
Type the number ten into the box: 0
Location: California
Contact:

Re: Getting into Unreal

Post by clintonman »

Draise wrote:.. if it only were finessed.
I think you spelled that wrong, it's spelled "finished" ;)
Lol, laughes at his own joke. :lol:
Clinton Reese

http://clintons3d.com
Post Reply