Problems with asset editing

[Atheran2]

I'll try to make this sort, but after a whole day and the major part of the night trying to get stuff to work, I don't know what else to do :sad:

 

I have two major problems at the moment that should be quite simple to do but apparently they don't want to behave.

I'm trying to help someone with his mod by creating assets (materials/models) but I'm stuck at even the simplest stuff.

 

First of all I'm using Maya and Photoshop if that helps out.

 

What I'm trying to do is two things. Change the colour of a weapon and make a simple modification to a model.

 

CASE 1: Colour

 

I'm trying t get rid of the green tint of the sniper rifle and give it a deep red one instead, so the steps I take are:

1) Find all the relevant files for the assault rifle

2) Copy them to my folder and then categorise them in meshes/textures/materials/sounds/etc

3) Open the Sniper Archetype from my folder and change the Skeletal Mesh to point to the one in my mod folder.

4) Open the Skeletal Mesh and change it to point at the material in my mod folder

5) Open the material file and simply change the tin option to a deep red one

6) Close everything and re-open the Skeletal Mesh. Everything looks as I want it to.

7) Save the folder to a upk

:cool: Go to the ModBuddy and import the upk to the contents folder.

9) Change the Template.GameArchetype = "WP_Sniper_MG.WP_Sniper_MG"; to Template.GameArchetype = "mod-folder-name.WP_Sniper_MG";

10) Build Solution. No errors.

11) Debug the solution. Create a bunch of levels until I find some enemy holding a sniper. Sniper has green tint!!!!!

12) Go for a smoke raging

 

PS. In the config file that I add the sniper to the enemy loadout I use the same name as in the class that generates the template for the sniper rifle that I set the Archetype.

 

CASE 2: Model

 

I want to change the model of the Advent female captain so it has only one shoulderpad instead of two.

1) Same steps as before about copying files to mod folder etcetera.

2) Right click on skeletal mesh -> Export to file. I choose fbx.

3) Open Maya.

4) Import fbx. fbx imports without the weapon that has in the skeletal mesh preview but I guess that's fine.

5) Delete the shoulderpad, touch nothing else

6) Try to export, I get an error about having to delete non-deformer history.

7) I delete it and export again as fbx. It works

:cool: Back in the editor, I try to import the fbx

9) Pop-up "Didn't import" No other information.

 

I followed the steps of the Documentation to have the right options checked etc. Only difference between the two fbx is the polycount obviously as I deleted some faces from the model. Bone count is the same.

 

 

If someone could help me out about those two things I'd be really, really thankful. If you want more information about them just ask

Edited March 2, 2016 by Atheran2

[Pyranara]

Probably not the help you want, but when searching for a specific enemy, you can use a command that's something like drop unit [template] [team] to drop a unit onto the time your mousecursor is at.

So if you know the template of a unit with the sniper, then dropunit [template] 1 to make it an alien.

[Atheran2]

Not the help I wanted but pretty darn useful to avoid spamming creation of multiple levels. So... thanks a lot!

 

EDIT: As for my second problem I was thinking... I'm using Maya 2016. Maybe the fbx exporter is incompatible with udk? Can someone confirm a working version of their fbx exporter?

Edited March 2, 2016 by Atheran2

[Atheran2]

First problem solved. For anyone else for future reference apparently the Tint/colour options at the weapons are for weapon customization interface. This info is stored in character slot. Enemies don't have the customization menu for obvious reasons so it wouldn't work because it didn't know what to do with this information. So instead of throwing an error it defaulted back to the default value which in the sniper rifle's case was the army-green.

 

Sadly it appears like the only way to change the texture for enemy weapons/armours/etc is by changing the texture file. Which I don't really like as an option because it creates a 2000% bigger upk than using the material sliders alone.

 

EDIT: Any idea what might cause flickering textures? Out of the 9 weapons I recoloured 2 of them have flickering textures at specific spots. I followed the exact same procedure for every single one of the weapons and I also checked the textures/materials/meshes/archetypes for differences that might cause this between the ones that are working and the ones that are not and I found nothing.

 

By flickering I mean, between the specified texture that I made and the original one.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Atheran2