UE3 - General Too detailed for UE3?

[Goldfenix]

I was just wondering if these super detailed textures (diffuse and normals) will work fine and noticible in UE3. I usually have to go up to 4096 res on tex because the engine compresses it mega time, but I dunno about these...


These are extreme close ups of a character I am making for use in UE3 for machinema.

 

[fleshsniper1]

Id just stick with around 2000. Its pretty hard to see the difference i believe. But as long as it works then go for the extra detail.

 

[Goldfenix]

Ill try that, but the normal's details are so fine I might have to use 4096. I did once, and it looked pretty good, but I dont wont to overkill the filesize. Every pore is on the normal map, along with every small fiber on the pants.

 

[ambershee]

You can choose different compression types when importing content - that should have an affect?

 

[Goldfenix]

wish I would have known that earlier

 

[|*BILLY$CLINT*|]

Or you could put a vector pram in your material and then adjust the blue channel the pull out the detail more detail form your normal map.

 

[Goldfenix]

Is a vector pram the same thing as a constant 3? I use the 3 vector with the RGB values to control the blue. Thats probably the same thing your talking about. The only problem I have encountered with that is, the details on the normal map become hard to notice and they pick up seems...


Oh, I forgot to ask earlier, but what types of DXT compressions can one choose while importing? Its probably the same from UE2, DXT 1,3,5

 

[|*BILLY$CLINT*|]

Yeah it is..Normals have there own compression setting that you select when importing.

 

[Goldfenix]

ill mess with it then, see what happens. I was hoping there was a way that you can choose for DXT though, would be easy since I know 1 wouldnt degrade it has much.


Here's more details on the character:


The character is Alma Wade (from the FEAR game series) in her teenage/young adult form (if she were to be normal enough to live to that age). Paxton Fettel, her, and the Pointman are going to be in a comedy which is a machinema. I havent decided if I should just make it all in Maya since I know that best, or do it in UT3's Ed. What I really know is that I want it to be super detailed, kindof similar to the Cryis graphics, except done in UE3 or Maya (not CE2)

The Paxton Fettel and Pointman are not going to be my models from scratch though. I will use them from the FEAR sdk and just redo parts of them to match the detail of my model a bit more.

The machinema will be called ASaF, (Alma sucks at FEAR). I made her this way, instead of using her normal model, because she is supposed to be a bitch. Its easier for a teen to be then a kid.


Some pics:

Still working out bugs, like the normals being inverted on one side of the mesh when I render with mental ray (but thats the only renderer I can use for good graphics).

I want alot of detail because the camera angles are going to be very close to the people talking or being focused on at that scene. I intend on scarying people with how often Alma will pop up at you, heh.




Results:



very good detail on the jeans. Very glad that I got the seems and compression to die down, thanks to your tips.

Face is much more evil in UE3, which is always a good thing

 

[EvilEngine]

Your gonna have a hard time getting a playable character like that in the game with so many material slots. Game prefers 1 or 2 materials per character, not 8.
Not a big deal for static meshes(which I am guessing is how your showing it in game like that) but skeletal meshes are a different story.

 

[Goldfenix]

Yeah, I thought that too. I am assuming that its still the traditional 0 is body and 1 is face setup, but now with all the newer complexities in this engine I dont know if I should cheat that. I dont really plan on this being a playable character though, but that would be interesting to see. I just want this for machinema.

 

[InAction]

If you're making it for a machinima... Well, all you need to do is get her in as a skeletal mesh in any way, make your custom animations, make an animtree and put her in the level as a SkeletalMeshMAT Actor.

That's really all there is to it. At least if you're doing it with Matinee.

 

[Goldfenix]

thats good to know, didnt think materials would matter. Now I just need to learn this new matinee editor.

 

[[VaLkyR]Assassin]

Nice work

 

[Menderis]

looks a bit blury but not bad. maybe you should use large details as nobody would notice the small stuff from a distance...something that you'll also notice if you take a look at the ut3 textures...pretty much detailed from a distance but blury if close. You don't need the small stuff anyway i think this is the limit for humans eyes and most of the time in ut3 you don't look at the things closely if you're really playing...

 

[Goldfenix]

thats, true. The small details do add to the big picture though, like pores and whatnot. I saw a huge difference in realism and shape when I put the pores on the normals. For some reason UT3 keeps changing the quality of the textures. They stay the same until I reopen UED, then they seem a bit blurred.