MeshMaker 1.0 released

[LXIXGTO]

hmmm... Mesh Maker sounds cool!
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I have always been frustrated with the limited selection
of decorative prefabs in UEd and wanted to make my own
with complex brushes but was afraid of poly issues etc....
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Why didn't someone tell me about this before?!

 

[Ren Höek]

Mychaeel, I'm wondering, this meshmaker, if it creates a mesh out of the builder brush, it converts all poly's into triangles. Can you make a tool that does just this for the builderbrush without converting it to a mesh?

 

[Mychaeel]

Probably (although it would be totally unrelated to MeshMaker, except the .t3d text parser code, maybe).

It would certainly be convenient if that was possible in a custom BrushBuilder script, but it seems it isn't---although individual vertices of the current red builder brush can be accessed, there doesn't seem to be a way to get information about which vertices are part of which polygon. Otherwise it would be possible to do all that directly within UnrealEd with just a bit of UnrealScripting.

On a more MeshMaker-related note:

Red: Polygon. Blue: Triangle edges created by MeshMaker.

MeshMaker currently uses the approach shown on the left side to split non-triangular polygons into triangles; it's the simplest possible way to do that.

However, since the way polygons are split into triangles affects the way meshes are lit, I wondered whether an algorithm that does the splitting in a more symmetrical way as shown on the right side would be desirable.

What do you (all) think?

 

[LXIXGTO]

Originally posted by Mychaeel
MeshMaker currently uses the approach shown on the left side to split non-triangular polygons into triangles; it's the simplest possible way to do that.

However, since the way polygons are split into triangles affects the way meshes are lit, I wondered whether an algorithm that does the splitting in a more symmetrical way as shown on the right side would be desirable.

What do you (all) think?

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My understanding of this is limited at best. I am not sure.
It looks like the one on the right is best for the hexagon because
we would see more facets head on. But which one would be best
overall would depend on the shapes you were using I guess.

Well, anyway ... many thanx for the tool. I am making a new map
now and plan to use Mesh Maker for many of the decorations.

 

[LP]

Originally posted by Mychaeel
MeshMaker currently uses the approach shown on the left side to split non-triangular polygons into triangles; it's the simplest possible way to do that.

However, since the way polygons are split into triangles affects the way meshes are lit, I wondered whether an algorithm that does the splitting in a more symmetrical way as shown on the right side would be desirable.

What do you (all) think?

well...id say that depending on ur mesh u might prefer a certain way of making the sides triangles. I think u should incorporate both ways, and allow the user to specify which

 

[Ren Höek]

I don't believe the cut poly's that are merged have a bad effect on the lighting of it with a mesh. The reason I asked it has nothing to do with the meshmaker itself, I was just wondering if you could create this tool because I could really use for it comes in handy many times if you vertex edit a lot. (and I do becouse I have no alternate program to create brushes with)

 

[Ren Höek]

Mychaeel, I'm having trouble with the texture panning, it gets a little out of place with the creation of the mesh. Any suggestions?

 

[LXIXGTO]

I had the same problem. It's a simple brush but some
of the surfaces were misaligned on the mesh. At first I thought it
was the original since I imported it from one of my earlier maps
but the original looks fine.

Other than that Mesh Maker has worked fine.

Here is a shot:

 

[Mychaeel]

Since textures can't be tiled or wrapped on mesh faces, MeshMaker has to realign and/or stretch textures that are tiled or wrapped on your prefab's surfaces.

In order to avoid that make sure that no texture edges are within the area of any single prefab surface.

(If that's the case and MeshMaker needlessly realigns your textures anyway, please send me your .t3d prefab and the .u file produced by MeshMaker so I can squish that bug...)