I received this email tonight and figured since it's the 3rd one this week (all simular anyway) I would share the answer with everyone here on the boards.
Most of you regulars have been over this stuff a time or two, but as new members join the boards these questions come back up. So if it's redundent for you, move on to the porn sites.
Matt writes:
"Hi, As I was looking around the web for a conversion tool(anything3d to .t3d, if there is such a thing)...I found your site and figured I could shoot you this question...First of all, do you know of a conversion program? Second of all,so you know, why, I'm wondering if it is possible to draw a map in Pro/Engineer(3d(the whole thing OR just chunks(buildings etc)) and then dump it into UED to finish it...."
Thanks
matt
My oh-so-witty reply:
You seek the answers to the universe... well... you would actually have a better chance if you in fact WHERE seeking answers to the universe! HA!
I have been hunting such a utility for roughly 3 years now! Truth is you are likely not to find such a beast.
I think the main reason you will be hard pressed to locate any such util is that the current Unreal Engine is simply not built for highly complex model representation. It's BSP based engine is limited, and optimized for speed.
So whats it all about? Integer math opposed to Floating point math calculations. In more simple terms... the engine can do what it does well, as long as all geometry is even digits (nothing to the right of the decimal) AND to also maintain even digits, everything MUST be on grid. Then you are truly allowing the engine to function in it's optimal form using Integer math. Follow so far?
OK, so you can do clean precise models with a good CAD application (Pro-E, Inventor, Autocad, Etc.), making sure nothing is smaller than 1 inch and even keeping everything on grid... is that enough? Close... but then you have the geometry limitation, or better said Poly count limitation, that says any more than 400 polygons is simply more than the engine was developed to display. But
that's only an issue if you are trying to import mechanical parts that are complex... and you say you want to do a building, right?
Now the truth comes out, you CAN in fact build most everything in Pro-E Or Autocad and import it piece by piece into Unreal. I know this to be true because I have done an entire 3 story building this way from Autocad. The trick was to keep the imports to as few as possible... chunks. And, I also had to first Export them from Autocad, importing them into 3D Studio MAX and THEN going out as a DXF. For some reason even though Autodesk Developed the DXF format I have found that it does not work from any and all applications the same. Gibe it a try... you might have better luck with Pro-E.
Next year all this will be history anyway. The next Unreal engine is "said" to allow 50,000 polys viewable at one time (over a million for the total scene). Just hunt around, you can pick up some interesting facts about it on the net.
Good luck. I hope this mini novel helps. ;-)
Daniel "Spooger" Patton
Most of you regulars have been over this stuff a time or two, but as new members join the boards these questions come back up. So if it's redundent for you, move on to the porn sites.
Matt writes:
"Hi, As I was looking around the web for a conversion tool(anything3d to .t3d, if there is such a thing)...I found your site and figured I could shoot you this question...First of all, do you know of a conversion program? Second of all,so you know, why, I'm wondering if it is possible to draw a map in Pro/Engineer(3d(the whole thing OR just chunks(buildings etc)) and then dump it into UED to finish it...."
Thanks
matt
My oh-so-witty reply:
You seek the answers to the universe... well... you would actually have a better chance if you in fact WHERE seeking answers to the universe! HA!
I have been hunting such a utility for roughly 3 years now! Truth is you are likely not to find such a beast.
I think the main reason you will be hard pressed to locate any such util is that the current Unreal Engine is simply not built for highly complex model representation. It's BSP based engine is limited, and optimized for speed.
So whats it all about? Integer math opposed to Floating point math calculations. In more simple terms... the engine can do what it does well, as long as all geometry is even digits (nothing to the right of the decimal) AND to also maintain even digits, everything MUST be on grid. Then you are truly allowing the engine to function in it's optimal form using Integer math. Follow so far?
OK, so you can do clean precise models with a good CAD application (Pro-E, Inventor, Autocad, Etc.), making sure nothing is smaller than 1 inch and even keeping everything on grid... is that enough? Close... but then you have the geometry limitation, or better said Poly count limitation, that says any more than 400 polygons is simply more than the engine was developed to display. But
that's only an issue if you are trying to import mechanical parts that are complex... and you say you want to do a building, right?
Now the truth comes out, you CAN in fact build most everything in Pro-E Or Autocad and import it piece by piece into Unreal. I know this to be true because I have done an entire 3 story building this way from Autocad. The trick was to keep the imports to as few as possible... chunks. And, I also had to first Export them from Autocad, importing them into 3D Studio MAX and THEN going out as a DXF. For some reason even though Autodesk Developed the DXF format I have found that it does not work from any and all applications the same. Gibe it a try... you might have better luck with Pro-E.
Next year all this will be history anyway. The next Unreal engine is "said" to allow 50,000 polys viewable at one time (over a million for the total scene). Just hunt around, you can pick up some interesting facts about it on the net.
Good luck. I hope this mini novel helps. ;-)
Daniel "Spooger" Patton