Lightmaps

This is a sample of using lightmaps at varying resolution. For larger models higher resolutions are needed however for small models a resolution of 128 seems to suffice.

Anti Aliasing,T3D and FBX

This image is the original screenshot taken from the Unreal Editor without GPU anti aliasing.

• This is a resized version of the first screenshot rendered at twice the resolution. Rendering beyond 200% of the original reduces several in game effects and in some cases removes it all together. There is no benefit to rendering beyond twice the original resolution for the purpose of achieving cheap anti-aliasing.
  
  




• After working on making a plugin that would export to t3d for importing into UnrealEd, I have found out through several test that this filetype only stores the creation of BSP and the transformation of meshes that are already loaded into the an Unreal package.
  
  




• Exporting FBX from Maya to UnrealEd and proven to be unrealiable at the moment. Beveled edges are unable to be exported at the moment however, using the same fbx that was exported from Maya to 3Ds Max and then exporting again to fbx creates positive results. Reason for this is still unknown. Apparently, the way in which 3DsMax exports fbx is more compatible with UnrealEd than Maya.
  
  
  
  

Hiccups

The reference image that I have decided on using has several perspective problems when translated into 3D. So the final project would be based of the reference and not attempt to be identical in perspective since the perspective is off in the reference. In addition if I had decided to match the perspective in the scene, the models would have been severely distorted preventing any type of fly through since the scene would have been camera specific.

Unreal High Quality Rendering Project

This is the reference image that would be used in this project. It was done by Antifan Real from Deviantart.

The objective is to create a high quality render that is comparable to Mental Ray and other high end renderers using the Unreal Engine as the renderer. The scene would be modeled, textured and lit in Maya. Then the scene would be exported to the Unreal Engine for rendering. One of the features that would be worked on to facilitate the exporting of the scene is a custom exporter. The main function of this exporter is to exporter the scene intact, seamlessly carrying across to the Unreal Engine models, textures, lights and cameras. Once that is successful the next step would be animation of models, lights and cameras. The file format of choice would be .t3d.

• The first step in the creation of the exporter would be to export the camera. This would include camera translation and rotation in relation to world space. Some additional features would include the camera lens attributes so that the camera view is as identical as possible as it is in Maya.


• Next would be exporting lights. This would include translation, rotation, type and all the other attributes that are directly translatable to the Unreal Engine such as shadows, light intensity, penumbra, fall off etc.
  
• The next feature would be the model export, which includes translation, rotation, UVs and normals.
  
• The final feature of the plug-in would be the most complex that being material and shader networks.

A successful plug-in would make the transition between to the two programs as seamless as possible allowing for most of the work to be done in Maya and little to no configuration of the scene when exported to the Unreal Editor.

Current plug-in reference is from http://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/RobTheBloke/www/research/maya/exp_plugin.htm

.t3d reference would be from exporting scenes from Unreal Ed to .t3d and examining the ASCII file. In order to verify the integritity of the .t3d during these .t3d extractions from Unreal Ed, the same export would be imported back into the Unreal Ed to verify the integritity .t3d importing.