Visually appealing building guide

In this tutorial, I go through the minor details of real world buildings, showing what makes them work and why.

Vertex welding issues

In Video Games, there is an issue where geometry flickers after it is imported into certain engines. I go over the ways of identifying these issues, and ways to fix them quickly and efficiently.

Complete asset creation process

This tutorial goes from start to finish for the creation of an asset in UT3.

Modeling, Uv's, High poly, Textures, LOD..

Texture Density

In this tutorial, I go over the basics of texture density with your assets for any model. There are two basic texturing methods, everything n the '0 to 1, and the more wild, uncontrolled 'random'. i touch on them both quickly.

Normal map creation process

This tutorial will cover everything you need to know about creating normal maps. low poly, high poly, uv'ing, baking normal map texture, mirroring normal maps, photoshop tweaking and much more.

Texturing tutorial of a fire hydrant

In this tutorial, I go through the steps needed in creating this fire hydrant. The base model, high poly mesh baked to low poly mesh, and the break down of the textures are all covered.

UDK: Example Scene (A Room For Testing)

This is a scene i am providing for anyone who wants to see a basic room set up in UDK. It is not 'final' but it can give you something to test with and tweak without having to create from scratch (A Room for Testing)

UDK: Unreal Developement Kit

Epic has released a 'free to download' and 'free to create' unreal engine that everyone and anyone can use. This link is here to inform everyone about it, and to link you to the site on where it can be found and a list of new features

UDK: LightMass/Global Illumination

In this tutorial, I go through the steps required to use the new Lightmass adition within UDK and the options that go along with it.

UDK: Screen Space Ambient Occlusion

In this tutorial, I go through how to get Ambient occlusion in your scene, and how to tweak the settings to better acienve an appearance you desire.

UDK: Static Mesh Emissive Scene Lighting

In this tutorial, I go through how to get the emissive channel of a static mesh to light the scene around you.

A prefab is basically a grouping of different assets into a single node, making it easy to instance and move around. I go through how to set this function up and how everything about it works. VERY handy for game creating.

UT3/UDK: Dynamic Assets, Tutorial 1

In this tutorial, I go through the steps i used to create a hanging medieval lammp act dynamicly when it is hit with an object or gun. How to import it inot max, how to set it up, and how to tweak the settings

UDK: Mesh Painting (Vertex colors)

In this tutorial, I go through the new 'Mesh Painting' function and how you can use it to have a single mesh, a single material and have an infinate numver of effects such as flickering, animating and timing of animation.

UDK: Advanced Mesh Painting

In this tutorial, I go through an advanced material shader where the painting of vertex colors creates a very dynamicly and graphically GOOD looking material.

UDK: Fog / Mist Material

In this tutorial, I go through the process of setting up a mist/fog like material. it is a distorted material placed on a mesh (bsp or polygon)

UDK: Materials: World Position Offset

In this tutorial, I go through one of the many ways you can make use of the 'World Position Offset' variable located in the shader network. In this example, i use this in conjuction with the mist material for better visuals.

UDK: Offsetting the mesh offsets the texture

In this tutorial, I go through the required steps to offset a secondary overlayed texture on your mesh as the mesh itself moves. One asset, one material, massive ammounts of variations.

UT3: 3Ds Max settings for exporting to UT3

In this tutorial, I go through the steps to set up your 3Ds max correctly so all your assets are to scale, and i go through an understanding of how the scaling reads in UT3

UT3: Modeling for the UT3 engine

In this tutorial, I go through details of how to model for the UT3 engine and why this method needs to be done.

UT3: Texture importing and settings

In this tutorial, I go over the basics of importing custom textures into UT3, and the settings required for these textures to work the wau you intended.

UT3: Basic materials

In this tutorial, I go through the material editor UT3 uses, and show some tips and tricks to obtain more detailed resluts, plus what to look out for when working on your custom materials.

UT3: Pylon Texturing
In depth texturing tutorial

In this tutorial, I go through more advanced ways to add details in the material editor to push the visual quality of assets.

UT3: Adding Brick variation on large surfaces

In this tutorial, I go through one of the many ways to hide repeating textures in your UT3 materials.

UT3: Adding variation to a repeating texture pattern

In this tutorial, I go through one of the many ways to hide repeating textures in your UT3 materials.

UT3: Using materials wisely

In this tutorial, I go through what is required to minimize the shader and texture footprint by recycling shaders, even if it's only a certain section of the geometry that needs a material change. recycling.

UT3: Escalator material (Bump Offset)

In this tutorial, I go through a method to create an escalator through the material editor that is animated and deforms as it heads up or down but levels out at the top and the bottom plane.

UT3: Reflective Water

In this tutorial, I go throughthe necessary steps to create a reflective water material. This will require the world to be rendered out twice so it is a little more costly, but gives a much more believeable look.

UT3: Vertex Blending Variation method

In this tutorial, I go throughthe the basics of vertex color blending, but it is primarily for adding variation to the transition so it is not a straight gradiant but rather un-even, and either hard or soft.

UT3: Specular highlight and normal issue (visual)

In this tutorial, I go through a big problem found with some assets where it appears like the specular highlights are screwed up after the lights are baked. I will provide you with a solution to this problem

UT3: Modular building and grid snapping

In this tutorial, I go over the importance of both modular building and grid snapping, how they work, and why they are a very good habbit to get into using.

UT3: Basic outdoor lighting 1 of 2

In this tutorial, I go through the steps needed in creating a lighting setup in UT3 for an outdoors scene.

UT3: Basic outdoor lighting 2 of 2

In this tutorial, I extend the details of the first tutorial. This time i will be lighting a very simple scene in Unreal.

UT3: Animated cloud shadows in UT3

In this tutorial, I cover the basics on setting up a light material which simulates the animation of cloud shadows in UT3

UT3: Vertex VS Lightmap shadows

In this tutorial, I go over the difference between vertex shadows and lightmap shadows, how to set your mesh up for lightmap, and what different settings look like.

UT3: Vertex Shadow tweaking

In this tutorial, I go through an issue you may come across when importing your own assets into the Unreal Engine, and how to fix it.

UT3: Decals

In this tutorial, I go over the basic settings to keep in mind while creating decals, and how they can be used in your levels.

UT3: Foliage Factory

In this tutorial, I go through the 'Foliage Factory' inside UT3. This handy little tool can snap assets on other mesh and randomise the rotations, allowing for quick and easy placement of grass, stones, and other small props.

UT3: Distortion - Refraction

In this tutorial, I go over the distortion options in UT3. How to set it up, and what to look out for.

UT3: Post Processing

In this tutorial, I go through the ins and outs of the post processing options, showing every piece of it that i can, and explaining them as in depth as possible.