So I am totally new to UE4. I did a little UDK and some Cryengine. I worked a lot with the editor for Elder Scrolls, so I get the basics. Here’s the thing, UE4 has introduced some really cool things you can do with materials and I want to take advantage of that. For instance, when you utilize the brushes, you can build out a whole building and drag and drop materials that you create (or the stock ones) and seriously do some quick editing all whilst watching in real time. My issue is that the brushes are great for fleshing out a level really quick, but not so great down the road. So when I build out my walls and floors etc in 3ds max, I lose some of the cool features the brushes get. Such as lining up materials and scaling them quickly. This forces me to unwrap everything and build out materials in photoshop and if later on I want stone instead of wood, I have to go make a new texture. As of now, the standard materials are HUGE on my meshes.
So how can I fix those issues? What do you do? Secondly, I’m modeling a cabin for fun just to get used to things and figure out some kind of pipeline. When you build structures or anything for that matter, do you build modular and if so, how large. Do you get as grainular as building beams, a wall, a floor, a corner section, house end caps, roof section, etc etc?
I use two different approaches depending on the type of structure I’m building.
For a cabin let’s say, since the play area (where the player can move around in) is rather small and a cabin is just a rectangle, I would model the entire thing in a modeling program and import it as one or a few meshes. For the decorations, I would import those separately and place them where they needed to be. In this case, those would be my only modular pieces.
If it was for a sewer level, I would build the play area out of additive and subtractive brushes and use modular decorations to flesh out the details such as pipes, grates, light fixtures etc. If it were an office building, I would approach it the exact same way. The reasons for this is that it can be tested very quickly, you can make changes to the layout easily if needed (you don’t have to reimport an entire hallway just to make a change to it) collisions are automatically in place and as you said, it is infinitely easier to texture.
Do try to avoid the making everything modular method though.
LOL!!! By the way…This is what I been trying to figure out for 3 WEEKS LOL And now I Know…But see I was to noob to ask the right question! LOL so thanks JohnRose for asking this!
For the modeling there are things you just can’t avoid, but something people in studios do today when a model don’t need much attention is to do a quick UV unwrap (also decimation master) in zbrush, the uvs and wireframe won’t be the “best”, but if works for that model its fine of course the downside for it is that your models won’t be using their full potential, you just have to pick your fight.
don’t wanna to get too much in the BSP thing there are plenty of threads about it already, but bottom line is BSPs won’t give you many options (can’t control how it renders, collision, its lighting, they are slow, and so on) its great for prototyping but not generally good enough for the final product.
Now for the workflow modular is the way to go, it does not mean you will make everything modular, its always good to have some “Hero” models, but that depends on the level.
you like Elder Scrolls…
I really like the way they approach modular level design on Skyrim
*if you are just having fun with a small cabin you don’t need worry about making it modular this is for when you make something bigger down the road.
Thanks for all the input everyone. I think I’ll go with modeling assets and then assembling them in UE4. I want the structures I build to be reusable throughout the world I build thus keeping everything similar in style and design. There will be a few hero design pieces that make certain structures more individual, but the bones will be from a certain collection. The hard part is that everything has to be unwrapped and then textures built in photoshop and then imported into UE4. If I keep my textures in photoshop format, edits shouldn’t be too time consuming. The question that remains is how granular I should get with my modular pieces.
This is what I been trying to build.