units setup for 3dsmax using unrealed

Load up 3DS Max. First we'll set up our units so that our grid in 3DS matches what we are used to in Unreal Ed. When operating 3DS Max with it's default settings, 1 unit on it's grid should equal 1 drag grid unit in Unreal Ed. To make sure of this, click on Customize and select Units Setup from the drop down menu.

The following shows what the default settings should be for your Units Setup as well as the System Units Setup. If your settings differ from what is shown below, make the appropriate changes before moving onto changing the Grid and Snap Settings.

Once your done making sure your Units are setup correctly, select the Customize menu again and this time click on Grid and Snap Settings. I selected 64 for my Grid Spacing (found under the Home Grid tab), though you can use any size you want at any time you want. Using a factor of 2 is a good guideline for working in both 3DS Max and Unreal Ed though. Since UEd shows a major line every 8 grid spaces, I set Major Lines every Nth Grid Line to 8 as well just to keep things familiar.

Also, I like to select Grid Points as well as Vertex for my snap settings under the Snaps tab. This will make the snap settings work much like it does in Unreal Ed.

Close the Grid and Snap Settings window. Turn on grid snapping by clicking the Snap Toggle button.

You are now ready to create your mesh. See the next section below for more information on learning to model 3D objects. Once you have completed your model, move onto the section titled "Preparing Textures for Use on Your 3D Model" in this tutorial.

Modeling & Texture Creation

I won't go into the details of actual model & texture creation since there are plenty of resources out there on the subject. The scope of this tutorial is to help folks get their 3DS Max creations properly set up for importing into Unreal Ed 3.0 as a static mesh. For folks that are completely new to using 3DS Max and modeling/texturing in general, I highly recommend the following books to help you get started:

• 3DS Max 4 For Windows by Michele Matossian (Part of the Visual Quickstart Guide series published by Peachpit Press) *No 3DS Max 5 version published yet, negotiations in progress.

• Game Modeling Using Low Polygon Techniques by Chad & Eric Walker (Part of the Graphics Series published by Charles River Media)

• Creating Weaponry and Accessories in 3D by R. Shamms Mortier (Part of the Conquering 3D Graphics Series published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers)

• [Digital] Texturing & Painting by Owen Demers (Published by New Riders)

An understanding of what UVW mapping is, and how Map Channels work and apply to UEd, is also quite helpful when working with this tutorial. Check out this page for more information.

Useful Tools

There are a couple of useful tools I would like to point out in this section as well. The first is the Turn to Poly modifier. It bears mentioning that 3DS Max like to create polygons in quads, while Unreal Ed like meshes to use triangles. Most of the time quads won't cause any real trouble, but to make sure everything goes smoothly it can be helpful to apply the Turn to Poly modifier to our model, and then set the Limit Polygon Size to 3. This basically acts like the Triangulate command in Maya if you have any experience with that program.