Creating Rock Arch by Dimitar Tzvetanov Web: www.artbychrom.com


Well the maps are ready now and you can combine them in photoshop. Separate them from the background first, then I used the color map as foundation and the occlusion map on top of it but, with multiply set as the layer mode. If it is too dark reduce the opacity a bit. Also as layer on multiply you can add here the cavity map if you have one. I also added a real stone texture but with lower intensity to enhance the map details. Finally all have to be simillar to fig.16. Here is also the normal map previously generated in 3ds max and render of the model in max with normal and texture map assigned.

Go to 3ds max, open your scene with the arch and export the model as ASCII Scene Export (.ASE) format. If your maps' names have spaces for example "normal map" rename them to "normal_map" or "normalmap" etc...

Now in this tutorial I will cover how to import and vizualize your model in UDK/Unreal development Toolkit/ www.udk.com. That's the mighty Unreal engine now free for the masses. Big thanks Epic.

I will show you how to import the model, assign the materials on it and render the scene at the end. For deeper exploration of Unreal engine I recommend you Eat 3d site as mentioned before. Videos there are proffesional, I have some of them too. Raven's youtube channel is full of free videos too. The udk site itself contains plenty of documentation and over 170 videos about the engine.

So let's start. First download and install UDK from www.udk.com

Start UDK. You will see a window that opens when udk start. That's the content browser.

If you close the window you can start it from the tab menu. Content browser has bunch of options. Import, export, organize, search etc.. You need to import your files. Click the import button and find your ASE file. In the import window that appears name your group in the Group tab " Meshes" and click ok. Next click import again and select your difuse map and specular if you have one. In the Import window set a name Textures in group field and check Compression No Alpha? because in that case you don't have an alpha.

Now import your normal map in the same way but in Import window in Compression Settings select TC_NormalMap. Again check compression no alpha enter group Textures and click OK. Right click on the gray field in content browser and select New Material from the menu.

Same as import texture window enter in group field Materials and click OK. Double click on your new material. This will open the unreal material editor. On the right your nodes are there. You need Texture Sample node. Select it and drag it to the field on lelft. One nice thing here is before you drag your nodes select the appropriate textures from the content browser first. For example if you select your normal map in content browser and then select and drag your node the map will already inside the node.