If you could offer one piece of advice to new UE4 Users...

Community Community & Industry Discussion
21

[=Gigantoad;141071]
Turtle vs. XNormal would be quite interesting. Does Turtle have a synced tangents workflow with UE4 then? Is there a MikkTSpace option?
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OK, I am not actually the artist of our team, I am the game designer / programmer with quite a bit of experience with Maya LT lately but obviously I am still lacking knowledge. Just talking to (the artist I work with) I am learning that the baking tools of TURTLE are somewhat limited. For example, there is no cage tool so tangents are more difficult to be accurate with. With a little hack, you CAN get synced tangents with UE4, but it involves importing the high res model into UE4, letting UE4 calculate tangents and then export them out, then import them into Maya LT and use them in the bake.

So, all to say, I no longer want to compare TURTLE to XNormal, I think XNormal is better. For the style of game we are creating, (we don’t need the tangent, we can bake based on distance only) Maya LT and TURTLE create good enough normal maps, but for more complicated lighting scenarios, I guess Maya LT TURTLE is crippled. Thinking about it further though, our high-poly versions of models are made outside of Maya in sculpting tools, so there is no reason we couldn’t use XNormal anyway.

22

XNormal is free, I have it also, so there is no reason not to at least have it.

As for the question about polycount on character. I expect my character to be in range of 100k triangles. Its not a big deal as I am making an adventure game, & she is the only character you ever seen for most part of the game, & only in cut-scenes.

You need quite a bit of triangle to break the edgy look of a character, hence the high triangle counts in many next gen game character

Some screen caps on the character model I am working on. (note some are Zbrush high poly sculpt for normal mapping), but I expect similar level of details after normal mapped. I hate to admit it, but I am pretty please with the shape of the character butt I made. :stuck_out_tongue:
://img.photobucket/albums/v211//Locked%20Room/CaptureAliceWIP03_zpsb1a2ed0c.jpg
://img.photobucket/albums/v211//Locked%20Room/CaptureAliceWIP05_zps2ea5aea3.jpg
://img.photobucket/albums/v211//The%20Locked%20Room/CaptureAliceWIP07_zps07708848.jpg

As far as how much to use, I think in the end, its a factor of how much overall polygons you have in your scene. Since I have low characters count on screen, I can dedicate more polygons on the character. If you have a big epic battle scvenes, with hundreds of character, you probably have to restrict the poly count on each character on top of using LODs.

Anyway, I base of the polygon budget of my character on next gen game like Ryse, order, killzone.

Since my game will not be release until at least 2016, I I go full next gen, in terms of visuals, & performance. Also the reason for using Unreal engine 4. Having a cutting edge, realistic look compare to other of adventure genre (which still mainly have 2D backdrop, or stylised visuals at the moment), is one of my (hopefully) selling point. The next being badass gameplay. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, about the Order, as much as I love the look, I always thought to myself…“Looks so good already, just imagine if it used UE4!”.

23

Anyway, keep to topic, & since I am a newbie (less than 2 weeks experience in UE4),

as a newbie to other newbie, I think.

  1. Its best to go through the main tutorials, & at least read through all the main features. I can recall in the past, skimping through documents of some software, & doing things the hard way, or not realizing certain tasks can already be done, because I did not bother to go through the documentation in details or tutorials.

  2. UE4 is a massive software, & there are a lot of stuff to digest, & learning stuff A lead you to stuff B, B lead to c. Then it gets overwhelming. What I do is to keep a notebook & list all the cross references , so I pick up the knowledge later (as oppose to trying to learn 10 things at once)

  3. Should be obvious, but taking learning as a fun adventure, and as obstacles challenges to overcome.

24

[=;141424]
I hate to admit it, but I am pretty please with the shape of the character butt I made. :stuck_out_tongue:
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Not bad, a little more junk in the trunk and perfection.

Then (and is a brilliant idea BTW) you just need to add 230 blend shapes and 260 joints in that butt to get the jiggle and sway just right. Who really cares if the facial animations look good!? Let’s get working on that butt movement.

25

[=Vega+;141870]
Not bad, a little more junk in the trunk and perfection.

Then (and is a brilliant idea BTW) you just need to add 230 blend shapes and 260 joints in that butt to get the jiggle and sway just right. Who really cares if the facial animations look good!? Let’s get working on that butt movement.
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With the power of next gen UE4 Engine, anything is possible.

26

:stuck_out_tongue: I have another advice:

When you are searching for something, always use search bar: .unrealengine/latest/INT/ -> it searches everywhere (answerhub, wiki, forum,…) :slight_smile:

27

I got 2 advices :P, Search before posting and ofc read the tutorials / docs.

28

Also, watch as many of the official UE4 tutorial videos (the ones with “Getting Started” in the title) over on :
GS = Getting Stared

Those are the basics, these go into more depth:

And for programmers:

Beyond that there are many more tutorials available, on pretty much every topic of UE4, to find all of the playlists, including a huge playlist of community tutorials, CLICK , and don’t forget to subscribe, new content comes out every week! :slight_smile:

29

[=;141940]
Also, watch as many of the official UE4 tutorial videos (the ones with “Getting Started” in the title) over on :
GS = Getting Stared

Those are the basics, these go into more depth:

And for programmers:

Beyond that there are many more tutorials available, on pretty much every topic of UE4, to find all of the playlists, including a huge playlist of community tutorials, CLICK , and don’t forget to subscribe, new content comes out every week! :slight_smile:
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Thanks I am doing exactly that.

UE4 is more addictive that the most additive game I ever play. Who knows making game is so much more fun than…playing them. Even when sleeping, I am thinking about how to resolve certain issues with blueprints etc, or what are the component of the an actor class I need to put in etc. haha.

30

Don’t Be afraid
At first Unreal Editor seems huge and overwhelming but after day or two you will discover whole editor is very easy and user friendly. Play with editor, press buttons, slide the sliders and feel the power of beast!

31

[=lmetreveli;142792]
Don’t Be afraid
At first Unreal Editor seems huge and overwhelming but after day or two you will discover whole editor is very easy and user friendly. Play with editor, press buttons, slide the sliders and feel the power of beast!
[/]

I like that advice. UE4 can be a little intimidating at first. But, once I learned the API and how to control it from my C++ scripts, it kinda feels like I have a lot of power under my control. Like I have the remote control for a 500m tall robot or something.

32

Use Blender for all the static meshes. When it comes to rigging and animation, subscribe to Maya LT for a month or two.

Once you learn the shortcuts in Blender, you would become super productive in modelling. In  the case of modelling, Maya is not so fast.  Maya is the best at animation and rigging so when you reach that part in your project it's good to subscribe.

In way you could take advantage of both packages, reducing time and costs.

I started learning Maya some time ago, but now I use Blender with Maya preset active. When people start building plugins with pie menus, Blender would become even similar.

33

How is Blender better in modeling, just a curious question. I never felt I my productivity are held back when I model in Maya, but then I never used other modeling software (if you discount Zbrush & CAD softwares).

Also, the suggestion to switch to Maya LT for rigging & Animation for a few months may works, but only if you already competence in Maya rigging & animation.

34

Actually it always depends on personal preferences which 3d program is better -> the only advantage of blender is, that it is free :slight_smile:

35

Blender is heavely shortcut based, that means each tool has its own shortcut. You could work an entire model, if you want, without touching the UI. When I switched, after I learnt the shortcuts, my modelling speed increased very much. Instead of clicking Edit Mesh-Extrude then Moove tool then drag the handle, I simply tap E key, G to move where I want or X Y or Z to move along desired axis. In Maya there is a bigger mouse travel and clicking.
If I want to scale, just press S, and then if I want X,Y,Z to scale along desired axis. If I press Shift+X,Y or Z, the scale takes place, but with selected axis excluded.
When I want to make a loop straight, in Maya I need to move individual vertices. In Blender, I just tap S, XYZ then 0 and got it right instantly.

In other words, the heavily key binding based modelling speeds the workflow a lot. Things that I couldn't do in Maya are done in Blender very fast.

 Sometimes, in Maya I had issues with normals. In Blender, Ctrl-N magic key solves them all.

  Blender also uses modifiers, similar to the ones in 3Ds .  also speeds up some things.

  When gaining competence, if you're a stdent, you could use educational version of Maya to learn animation and rigging. When you rig or animate for your game, swap to Maya LT and bring your Blender chars in there.
36

[=mahri726;143334]
Blender is heavely shortcut based, that means each tool has its own shortcut. You could work an entire model, if you want, without touching the UI.
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is true for Maya or most likely any 3D package really, you just have to configure hotkeys/shortcuts to your liking.

37

My advice is to remember about “failure”, especially when working with game development software. You did not actually fail, you learned one way not to do what you wanted to do. Use any circumstance that was not ideal and learn from it so you can find the solutions that get the results you are looking for. When you reframe a “failure” into a learning experience way, it makes the whole process much more fun and less stressful. At very least has been my personal experience!

38

[= ;143396]
My advice is to remember about “failure”, especially when working with game development software. You did not actually fail, you learned one way not to do what you wanted to do. Use any circumstance that was not ideal and learn from it so you can find the solutions that get the results you are looking for. When you reframe a “failure” into a learning experience way, it makes the whole process much more fun and less stressful. At very least has been my personal experience!
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Good call, even when you fail, you’ve probably learned something.

Today I was watching a video of a guy trying to make a realistic high-gloss car paint material in UE4. His result was something that looked like inch-thick ice over water. So he accepted that he needed to go back to the drawing board but said “hey, if I ever need to simulated the look of a sheet of ice…”

39

If you not a programmer, dont try to find him, he will find you.

40

My advice whould be.
The UE 4 community is your best resource, use it as much as you can (Forum, AnswerHub, IRC …) and return the favor in no time. :slight_smile:
And have fun!