Unreal for aircraft interior visualization

[sephcor9]

I am new to the concept of using Unreal Runtime for architectural/interiors realtime walk-throughs and am looking for some advice on where to begin. Currently I use 3DS Max6 to generate bitmap sequences of walk-throughs, import the sequence into Adobe Video collection and burn DVD's to give to customers. I am looking for a realtime solution that would allow clients to walk the space themselves and possibly interact with aircraft furniture.

At first glance, it would appear that a commercial license for Runtime is where I want to go, but of course I would need to learn the basics and come up with a good demo before my employers would shell out the seven or eight thousand dollars for the commercial version.

I am used to working with millions of optimized polygons that originate from CATIA or Rhino, so I know I will need to change my ways about the level of detail in my models. What I'm not sure about however is whether or not I need to have a background in programming to use Realtime.

My gut tells me I should start out with UT2004 and UnrealED, then try to learn scripting, then move on to Realtime. It would be nice if I could just use Realtime with no scripting to do real-time walkthru's but I don't know if this is possible. I would appreciate any advice the community could offer.

One last question: Does Realtime support normal mapping? I believe I read that Realtime is based on UE 2, which, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't support NM.

Thanks.

 

[l3hmi]

nope this version is not supporting any normal mapping...

what sort of interactivity are you talking about?
you can do alot only by learning the ins and out's of unreal ed...

 

[eastgate2]

If your clients will only walk inside some interiors, you can achieve this without any coding. You will just need to build your "level", light it up and add a playerstart and whomever will have your saved/compiled package files will walk in your level. However, "the polygons" thing might be your problem if you don't modify your work-flow a bit. I don't know if your clients are crazy about turbo-smoothed models. Not millions but up to 70K polys per scene is ok for unreal engine but keep in mind that's for games standarts. A lot of intense rendering is going on during a death-match so if you want to display just architecture rather than fancy effects you might go for higher polys per scene. On the other side, it depends on what kind of rig does your clients have? They will need a semi-good gaming computer at least to walk around a 70k polys per scene level.

And don't try to import your entire models from max to unreal. Basic tutorials like this will help to understand importing from max to unreal. Best idea is to chop up your big/many poly'ed mesh into smaller pieces and import them one by one to unreal.

Good luck...