Bonesnap

If anyone has read my previous post you’ll see my feelings toward the whole ‘twilight’ saga.

While reading some posting from a twilight bashing thread I stumbled across this picture.

Total Greatness!

How Twilight should have ended.

“Take the busss!”

That saying will be in my head forever. 

A few weeks ago the wife, myself, and some friends went to Cancun for some fun in the sun. I never been and I have to say, I enjoyed myself.

So after a few days of soaking up the sun the crew got wind of a flea market down town. We all change clothes and meet at the front of the hotel to finalize our game plan.

There are always folks hanging around the entrance to the hotel to catch rides to the airport or other locations in the city. When the crew all showed up, I asked “How do we get there?”

Buddy of mine said, “Clerk said it wasn’t far down. We’ll just walk.”

That’s when an older lady who was leaning up against the wall piped up: “NO! Take the bussss. You will take the bus! It’s a long walk. Take the bussss.”

It was like my creepy 4^th grade teacher scolding me for thinking on my own. So we walked to the bus stop and caught the bus. The lady was right, it was a long walk. But the whole day I couldn’t get her saying out of my mind.

“Take the busss” I started saying in the deepest scratchiest voice I could muster. We made it to the flea market and back to the hotel. The whole time I was picturing this old hag in a b-class horror movie telling wary travelers “Take the bussss” and they would be carted off. Never to be seen again.

So, every morning when my kid gets up to go to school I tell him “Get on the bussss” .

I find it funny. However, that’ s just me.

So, you’re new to the UDK and you start building your levels. You’re done adding all the bells and whistles and click on the build button. You get the cryptic “No Importance Volume Found” error below.  

Lightmassimportancevolume build error

If you were like me you where totally lost on what it was referring too. 

That error is in reference to calculating “light” in the current level. In essence an “importance volume” is a container that holds everything in your level. This way when the system goes to calculate light it knows the ‘boundaries’ of where the light is actually going to be seen/not seen. 

When the volume is not defined the system has to calculate the light for everyone in the ENTIRE viewport. Needless to say, it massive so it just throws an error. 

Here is how to add the importance volume. 

Right click on the Volume Buttom. 

Volume Button

Next, click the add “LightMassImportanceVolume” selection. 

LightMassImportanceVolume

It should automatically enclose your scene. If not you can change the size of it. 

Adding the Light Mass

Now rebuild and your error should be gone. 

Rebuilding with a Importance Volume

Now that a few weeks have went by, I managed to do a little playing around with the UDK. First, I have to say this software is out of this world!

I have some good news and bad news. The good news is this tool provides just about everything you need to create some really awesome stuff in a 3D environment.

The bad news is, if your looking to make a fully functional game all by yourself, it will take years!

With that out of the way, let’s move on into my analysis of the software. Most of my experience with software was always OTJ. I’d just install it and start working with it and a lot of functionality was intuitive. In my experience the UDK is not that way. If it wasn’t for books and online tutorials then I’d still be totally lost.

Take for example this interface:

It can be overbearing.

So, for the first week I started watching and duplicating what I seen in these videos: http://download.udk.com/tutorials/using-udk/user_interface.zip

There are 34 videos that cover nothing but  the UI. However, upon completing the videos I still was lost on some aspects. It is because all of those videos just barely scratched the surface of the Unreal.

I went ahead and bought the following book off of Amazon:

Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3

This book is huge! However, don’t let the size fool you. It’s a step by step guide to level creating and it’s pretty good. However, for the more advanced stuff you’ll be forced to buy volume 2 and 3. There is one issue I had with the book. The UDK is updated monthly and is evolving as it does. The book references way to access functions and assets that no longer exist in the UDK. So, I spent time trying to figure out processes on my own.

I will say, that is good thing in a way because it forced me to learn the UDK.

The biggest pointer I can give out is just create levels. The UI is weird and hard to get used too and the best to over come this is just constantly create levels.

I’m not sure what my path is with this tool but either way it has been quite intriguing on my journey.

I’ll post some level updates and videos in the near future.

The hardware technology landscape is always changing so video game designers have to constantly try to stay up. The constant effort to make better games with better hardware is a never ending race. Since it takes one to two years to completely finish a game… that game could already be obsolete before it ever hits the shelves.

In general management we all know that if we can reuse what we already have that it can speed up our timelines. However, the issue with the gaming industry is the ever changing improvements on hardware. So once one project is finished and a new one started, everyone starts from ground zero again to learn what’s new in the industry.

How to get around this?

Years ago the software company EPIC  released  ‘Unreal’. It was truly amazing first person shooter that used an engine that Epic named “Unreal”. Years go by and EPIC developed and refined this engine into what it’s currently referred to now: “Unreal 3”.

EPIC did realized the dilemma with the state of video games and development and went several steps further to help cut down on development time. They created a set of tools that would help developers create unique video games that ran on the Unreal  engine. They would then sell these tools and engine  to other software companies. This eliminated the issue of other companies having to design from scratch.

As of present,  we have games like Borderlands, Gears of War, Unreal Tournament III all created with the Unreal 3 engine .

It is truly remarkable.

The Unreal 3 engine and tool kit has been around for a while. If you could afford the large sum of money that was required for licensing you could create your own game.

However, several months ago EPIC decided to release the Unreal 3 engine to the public – for free. There is some licenses verbiage if you do create and sell stuff using this engine.  Non the less, it’s free. So you and I can play around with it. EPIC bundled the engine and tools in a package called the UDK (Unreal Development Kit).

UDK

You can download it and install it from www.UDK.com

For years I’ve always wanted to create my own games. Recently, I’ve gotten heavy into Machinima. The UDK addresses both of those issues.

So, I decided to use my blog to document my adventures with the  UDK.

There are 100s of YouTube videos already in existence that cover a wide range of functions in the UDK. Plus, on the UDK website there is articles, forums, and a ton of other help files that are available. I’m not going to rehash any of that. At least, I’ll try not too. J

The tool is easy to install and really doesn’t have an issue running on what I call a moderate build machine (little extra memory, decent graphic card, etc). It runs on my laptop ok but I have an issue viewing my graphics from time to time.

EPIC did a good job providing a lot of documentation online. In my opinion the online repository is poorly designed. It took me forever to find any beginners documentation. Maybe it’s just me.

This part is getting way to long so I’ll cut it off here and start a new topic. However, there is one piece of parting advice I’d like to give. These tools we not created for just 1 person to design himself a game. It was created and used by teams of people. So, keep that in mind when tackling the UDK.