Book Image

Unreal Development Kit Beginner's Guide

By : Richard Moore
Book Image

Unreal Development Kit Beginner's Guide

By: Richard Moore

Overview of this book

Unreal Development Kit (UDK) is the free version of the award-winning Unreal Engine 3. It is used to create a wide variety of games ranging from amateur to professional standard next generation AAA titles. This book will show you exactly how to create an enjoyable and immersive game environment using the UDK. You will learn how to implement, level design, lighting, environmental effects, movement, terrain, map creation, item placement, kismet, materials and complex event sequences. You will work through the level design process from navigating round the editor to learning how to develop a fully playable environment. You will quickly master all of the engine’s key tools that are accessible through Unreal Engine 3. You will then start putting together your first level using step-by-step instructions. Next we will implement real world features such as dynamic lighting and shadows, particle effects, physics, terrain, item placement and advanced AI/bot pathing. Finally you will learn how to use UDK’s cutting edge high level scripting. By the end of this book you will be equipped with the skills to create an entertaining and imaginative game world.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Unreal Development Kit 3
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Pop Quiz Answers
Index

Time for action – lightmaps


  1. When you bake lighting on your scene, the lighting data gets stored into one or more images called lightmaps. Open up an existing scene that's a simple CSG room with a light in it, as shown in the following screenshot:

  2. Save your scene (call it DM-LightmapTest.udk) and bake lighting. Now look in your generic browser, and you'll see a package named DM-LightmapTest. If you select it, you'll see four texture images in it. These are the lightmaps that got baked for your cube. I won't go into why there are four of them—the reasons are technical and they won't affect your work. If you create a bigger level, the lightmaps will be bigger because they cover more surface area.

  3. Now switch back to the main editor window and click the Lighting Only button in your perspective viewport. The checkerboard goes away and you're left with just the lighting. But notice that it's a little blotchy. This is because there's not a lot of detail in the lightmap. After all, those images in...