In this tutorial you will learn know to import custom textures into UDK in order to use them to create a new material. We'll take a diffuse, a specular and a normal map texture and import them into UDK.
You'll learn proper texture size dimensions to use, how to save textures, how to import textures and create a new package in UDK.
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UDK: How to Import Custom Textures
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UDK: How to Create Your First Material
After covering the basics of the Material Editor, textures vs materials and importing your custom textures into UDK, you are now ready to create your first material. Following tutorial will guide you through to creating your first material by using the imported textures from this previous tutorial.
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UDK: Material Editor Guide to Practical Examples
The following is a guide to most common practical material editor examples of improving and enhancing your material creation. You can do many things within the material editor that do not require you to re-adjust and re-import a texture. You can brighten or darken a texture, you can increase the depth of a normal map, you can control specular highlights or increase a contrast of a diffuse, you can add color to a diffuse or use diffuse as a specular map. All within the Material Editor itself. Find out how to improve your materials within the editor itself.
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11 Things I Learned from Dream Worlds
What can you learn from production design for animation? Most importantly, how do you apply these principles from production design for animation to game environment art?
As environment artist and level designer, you must absorb knowledge from many different art disciplines. It should include architecture, interior design, photography, film and animation.
The hardest part is to find connections and correlations from these disciplines and apply it to your own work. For example, you could read an instructional manual on composition and lighting for photography but if you can't translate it to game environments and how it improves your work, then you just got better at taking photos.
The key is to find a way to use practical knowledge in one discipline and transfer it to another.
When I was in college, studying computer animation I found a great book that offered insight into preproduction and world creation for animation.
The book is Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation by Hans Bacher.
Although the book is mainly focused on feature animation from Disney, there is a lot of correlation to game environment artists. The author offers practical advice and insight you can use.
Here are 11 things I learned from Dream Worlds and how I applied it to game environment art and level design...
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Resource: Level-Design.org Knowledge Base
Mateusz "seir" Piaskiewicz over at Level-Design.org recently created and launched new Wiki-based website called Level Design Knowledge Base. He created the site to share his knowledge and thoughts on Level Design.
Mateusz is a Senior Level Artist and Designer at Techland. Some of the games he worked on include Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Dead Island and Dying Light.
Here is a snipped from Mateusz:
"Welcome to the LEVEL-DESIGN.org Knowledge Base. This website gathers information about all the aspects of level creation process. Please visit About LEVEL-DESIGN.org Knowledge Base page to know more. Happy reading and have fun creating levels!"
Click over and check out LEVEL-DESIGN.org Knowledge Base.
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13 Ways to Improve Your LD/3D Skill Away From a Computer
Have you ever wanted to work on your level designs and environment art, but you couldn't? You were nowhere near your computer. No level editor or 3d modeling apps in sight. For example you are on vacation, taking a trip, or you have another obligation which requires you to be doing something else and be somewhere else. But, you are eager and want to work.
These are 13 ways of becoming a better level designer and game environment artist away from the computer. Each of the methods can be done anywhere, anytime and any place. Use any of the following ways to continue to work, improve and expand your knowledge. I use these all the time.
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Coming Soon Tutorial Guides - Next Week: What to Expect
Next week is going to be very busy here at WoLD. I am currently putting final finishing touches on a project that has been in the works since earlier this year.
This release has to do with UDK (Unreal Development Kit), so for next couple of weeks starting Monday, Nov. 24th will be UDK take-over week.
But this isn't about me or this website. It is about what you get out of it.
So, what does this mean for you?
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NEW/FREE PDF Tutorial Guide: The Essential Beginner's Guide to Getting Started With UDK
I have created a brand new, free PDF tutorial guide for you.
It features 130+ pages and over 150 techniques, methods, insight, tips and advice on how to get started and use UDK. It contains a lot of information that is straight to the point and gives you direct steps to applying the techniques.
I created this guide for beginner's to get started with UDK and as a way to manage my own workflow between different game engines. I often found myself forgetting how to do something in UDK, after working in another game engine for a while. Each game engine has its own different workflows, techniques, interface and shortcuts. So I needed a way to remind myself of the steps of doing something without having to re-watch or re-learn the basics.
I recommend to use this guide as a reference manual for most commonly used techniques and tips in UDK. So if you want to do something in UDK, and need a quick and direct steps to doing it, use this guide.
What You Will Learn From This Guide:
- 30 Quick Steps to Getting Started with UDK
- 18 Tips on Mastering BSP Brush Geometry Construction
- 21 Tips to Using and Improving Static Mesh Workflow for Environment Construction
- 15 Ways of Texturing Your Environment
- 16 Tips to Improve Your Lighting with Exterior and Interior Environments
- 9 Ways on How to Use Fog in Your Environment
- 8 Tips to Using Skies Within Your Environment
- 10 Ways to Improve How Your Environment Looks with Post Processing
- 34 Tips and Advice on Getting Started, Using and Creating Better Landscapes
But if you are not a subscriber and want to receive this tutorial guide, click here and sign up for free WoLD email and newsletter updates and you will receive a download link to get your copy.
Also, this PDF guide is only a start. Keep an eye out for this Friday, November 28th, when I finally will be releasing two huge UDK guides: UDK The Foundation and UDK How to Guide to Landscape Creation.
Until then,
Download your free guide here and leave a comment. Let me know what you think about it...
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2 UDK Tutorial Guides are Now Out - One of Them is a Free Bonus
Today, I wanted to finally let you know that "UDK The Foundation" and "UDK How to Landscape Guide" are Out.
These are two most detailed guides that I have ever created and released yet.
I've included an amazing bonus with it to make it worth your while, but note that the bonus and offer will expire on December 3rd.
Click Here to Download Your Copy...
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UDK: 22 Steps to Getting Started with UDK - Updated (in Less Than 30 Minutes)
In this tutorial you will learn everything you need to know in order to get started with UDK.
I've narrowed down this process to the core essentials in 22 steps. Best part, this will only take you 30 minutes to complete.
This tutorial is the updated version of "UDK Basics Getting Started in 11 Steps Parts 1-3" that were released in 2010.
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UDK: Landscape Challenge - 30 Minutes or Less to Create/Form a Landscape
If you are working on any exterior environment, you will need to know how to form realistic landscapes.
With UDK Landscape Mode, you can create large open worlds that are miles long. For this you can use external software to generate your heightmaps such as World Machine, Terragen 2, HMES TerreSculptor, L3DT or Photoshop.
But before you can get there, you should know how to form your landscapes manually. For any landscape to look good you have to know how to use the tools. Even more important, you have to understand the workflow and use photo reference.
This is where this short UDK Landscape Challenge comes in.
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16 Recommended 3D Game Engines (Updated)
Updated: This post has been udpated with an additional game engine, updated links and new information that was outdated.
If you ever wanted to take your skill further into game development and game design, you will need to begin exploring the world of game engines. Game engines will provide you with the framework that game designers use to create games.
Not every game engine is available to download to try without paying for a license first. However there are many free game engines, open source engines and non-commercial versions that you could work with and download right now.
In this blog post I will provide you with options and links to few game engine, their features and download page so you can make a better decision on which one is right for you.
So, for those who are interested in going a bit further into game development, to explore new technologies to showcase your game environments in or just curious behind game engine technology; here are 15 suggestions of game engines you can get your hands on right now.
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UE4: Guide to Player Scale and World/Architecture Dimensions
When I begin a new project or learn a new game engine, the first things I figure out is scale and dimensions to use.
Deciding on a scale of player character and world geometry will help you to avoid major problems with proportion. Correct scale means that you know the basic dimensions for your architecture, your character and you use them as a guide to create your environment.
At the beginning of every level creation, you have to decide on base dimensions you will use for your project.
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UE4: Use This Skeletal Mesh Reference to Judge Scale and Proportion
The first thing you should do when creating a game environment is place a character reference. This will help to create your level to proper scale and proportion. The character scale reference must have the same dimensions as the player in-game.
For this you could use a BSP Box, Static Mesh Box, Primitive Shape Human Mesh or Character/Skeletal Mesh.
The best option is to use a character/skeletal mesh. In this tutorial I will show you two ways you can use Skeletal Mesh Reference that is included with Unreal Engine 4. Better yet, you will learn how to always have this scale reference with any project.
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UDK: 2 Quick Ways to Modify and Form Landscapes
In this tutorial you will learn how to generate and modify UDK Landscape heightmap very quickly to generate a random pattern of hills, mountains, peaks and valleys. It will give you a good starting base for a landscape.
These two tools in UDK are Landscape Noise Tool and Erosion Tool.
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UDK: Create Landscape Heightmaps with Photoshop Clouds Filter
In this tutorial I have a great technique/workflow for you - how to generate heightmaps for UDK very quickly. The results are usually very realistic and if you follow these steps, you can get a good landscape going in just a few minutes.
You will need UDK and Photoshop.
Lets break each of the process step-by-step...
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Everything is $25 - All Premium Tutorial Guides are On Sale (Ends Monday April 27th)
It has been a while since I ran a website sale for all premium tutorial guides.
I want everyone to experience and learn from these guides, so for next 5 days I am offering everything in the store/product section for just a fraction of the original price.
Starting today, everything in the store/product section of World of Level Design is only $25.
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UE4: How to Download and Install Unreal Engine 4
In this tutorial you will learn how to download and install Unreal Engine 4 on your computer.
The process if fairly simple, but it does require few additional steps before you can use Unreal Engine world/level editor.
Follow these 6 simple steps to download and install Unreal Engine 4.
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UE4: How to Create, Start and Open Your First New Project
How do you open/launch Unreal Engine 4 editor?
Once you have Unreal Engine 4 downloaded and installed, you need to create a new project or open an existing project in order to launch Unreal Engine 4 world/level editor. In this tutorial you will learn how to do just that.
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UE4: Create Projects From File Examples, Samples and Marketplace Content
Unreal Engine 4 provides educational and example content for you to reverse engineer. There are Engine Feature Samples, Gameplay Concept Examples, Example Game Projects and Marketplace Content.
From the Epic Games Launcher, there are a lot of example files you can access and download for free. But once you download, what do you do with them?
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