Mini Tutorial: Remove UDK HUD with 3 easy nodes Bonus: Remove Weapons and Warning Messages

Writing this for a friend, and to help myself remember... age.

Hide the HUD

This tut is assuming you know how to open kismet... so you know, open it now. You are going to need 3 nodes: Level Loaded, Toggle HUD, and Player.

To find Level Loaded, Right Click in the space and go to New Event > Level Loaded

To find Toggle HUD,  Right Click in the space and go to New Action > Toggle > Toggle HUD

To find Player, Right Click in the space and go to New Variable > Player > Player

Now, Connect the wires between  Loaded and visible to Hide, and Target onto Player, and you are finished.

Bonus Material!

Permanently Hide UDK's weapons!

On the top bar, Go to View > World Properties  It will open a new window, scroll down to World Information and simply check the No Default Inventory For Players.

Remove Warning Messages from Play Screen!

Remove those annoying messages from the top left of the screen.

Hit Tab or ` to open the typing console. Type t and it will be the first choice- toggleAllScreenMessages 

If you have Comments or Questions, feel free contact me. If I made a mistake or you have a better way, let me know and I will change it. Thank you for looking.

Checkpoint Completed

Calling this project done! Time to move to the next one. I am thinking Sci fi and try out nDo2 and the new dDo.  Maybe a hallway!

Progress

Still making progress, slowly but surely!

 

Second Place!

I received 2nd place in Game-artist.net's challenge. Missed first place by 2 votes, (one vote if the winner didn't vote for himself-or if I did, since he did).

Any way, progress on the scene!

Please leave a comment, be the first ever!

Finished Challenge

I finished the challenge over at Game-Artist, or at least I turned it in. I will be working on the environment for a bit longer!

Progress

Time limit is almost here for this. Still many, many things to do...

Yet More Progress

8 days left in the contest!

More Contest Progress

Making slow progress, Death of a friend and illness in myself slowed me down. Time to buckle down!

Contest Progress

Making progress on the Game Artist Contest

I am going to use a concept from the upcoming survival horror Last of Us By Naughty Dog.

I think I am done with the most of the block out and have done a first pass on lighting. I have never used UDK's new landscape tool, and was trying it out using UDK's concrete. I still have a ways to go, and 3 weeks to do it! Wish me luck!

The Great Collaboration Challenge

Joining a competition   http://www.game-artist.net/forums/great-collaberation/18558-great-collaboration-challenge.html

Seems like fun. I enjoyed the last competition I joined, and liked what I created. This should be fun!

New Portfolio Site

I changed my portfolio site to http://tswarnke.weebly.com/ I need to post pictures of material break downs. and post more work, but fairly happy with it.

Progress and inspiration

Progress on newest building. The building is created modularally-is that even a word? To allow the Level Designer to make variations of the building. I have been told he doesn't like me much...

Noah Bradley posted a really great article about persistence in not giving up, check it out!

http://www.noahbradley.com/blog/2012/keep-going/

More Progress

Progress

Making progress on my building.

Having to redo some of it, but getting there. Just... it looks more run down than war torn.

Workflow Advice

I found this nugget of gold on the polycount forum It was posted by Chrisradsby

Remember: Props are much more impressive when put into context, even if they're simple.

 

I say:

 

1. Go into http://www.conceptroot.com/ and find inspiration and reference for you next scene.

2. Start to plan your scene, decide on what's important: The whole picture or a close quarters scene with lots of detail. (Best worlds is if you can fit both)

3. Plan your textures, write down a list and get down the initial textures you would need for the basic overview of the level. (wooden beams, concrete, metal etc)

3.5 Decide your texture workflow, is it really worth it to Zbrush or have unique textures for smalll props? Is it worth going through all the high-low poly baking? Will you see all that detail?

4. Go modular, tilable textures and modular parts that you can put together in your 3d-modeling software.

5. Create the shaders you need to set everything up.

6. Greybox your environment and some bigger props and add your basic tilable textures to them so that you feel like you're getting somewhere.

7. Post to polycount and get feedback as soon as possible.

 

Brick Texture

Working on an Art Test, I needed a brick texture, and one better than my previous attempts. Took me a couple tries to get the normals decent result. I used PhillipK's tut as a roadmap.

Going to use it as a base for a damaged version to use for vertex blending.

I lost control of where my scene was heading because of the advice I was being given. It was good-GREAT advice, but I couldn't get the scene to come together without redoing nearly all the pieces, and then it wouldn't of really made sense.

This is a low poly blockout/guide of what I am planning. I don't have all the pipes and ceiling tiles placed, but it should be enough to get me going.

I am looking for a Mod to join, again... The last 3... well, anyway. I applied to one and they will be giving me an art test, I guess we will see. At least taking an art test seems more professionally done.

Still unemployed...

Progress

Max has been crashing alot on this pieces slowing me WAY down. Ended up being 4317 tris. The Count is higher than I planned, but I think I will leave it, and continue the rest of the scene. Pipes are placeholders BSP brushes.

Naming Conventions

This is more for me than for anyone else. File names are extremely important, whether in Max, or in UDK. These are mine, however, if you are working on a project with someone else, be sure you are using the agreed upon naming conventions.

Map Names Suffixes, All have the Prefix TEX_ for Texture

• _D  Is your Color map or Diffuse.
• _S Is your Specular Highlite Map, It normally is colored but can be grey scale and placed in an Alpha Channel to save file space, otherwise, put your Gloss map in this Alpha Channel..
• _N Is your Normal map. If you are using a Height Map, just put it in the alpha channel here.
• _SI Is your Self Illumination map or Glow Map.
• _G Is your Gloss Map, it controls the spread of your specular highlites. I have the least experience with this map. I think it is just a grey scale image and should be placed in the alpha channel, (I try to use S) to save space.
• _H Is your Height Map, I try to put it in my Normal's Alpha channel.

So, T_TechWallLg_DIF would be a Diffuse texture for the Long Tech Wall.

Static Meshes have the Prefix SM_
SM_TechWallLg

Materials in UDK are MAT_ or MI_ for Material Instance
MI_TechWallLg

Particles systems are PART_

I hope this helps someone.

Trying a Different Work Flow

I tried a different Work Flow. I am also trying to teach myself to draw... So I made a concept of what I wanted to make.

I created a base mesh, well a series of meshes, in Max. I imported into Mudbox. I sculpted in Mudbox.

I reimported into Max and created a low poly mesh which doubles as my cage for baking the normals. I unwrapped and cloned the pieces I needed. I moved them off of 0-1 area. I baked the Normals, AO and a selection mask in Max.
Ran the result through Photoshop and Bam!

Diffuse, Spec, Gloss and Normal. Also a Self Illumination map not shown.

Here is the result. 396 tris

Updates

I really need to update more often.

Have one baking atm, and another one not shown, lol. Update with I do a texture pass on newest one.

Progress on scene

High Poly is mostly complete

My idea for the block out, I think the hall is too wide, going to experiment.

Latest Scene

I am working on a scene loosely based upon these two concepts by an unknown artist

Here is the latest progress on the High Poly central piece

Here is my PolyCount thread