Topic: [UDK] Spline Loft Actor Collision Workaround?

[ward]

Is there a workaround to get working collicions with spline loft actors? This way i could do the roads in the UDK editor which would be the preferred way. Else I could just model them but that will be more work, and that will not re-use one mesh like with spline loft actors.

I figured since the geometry is there, maybe it could be used somehow as a collision mesh.

[kat]

You can use splines in Blender to do something similar to make roads relatively quickly. I tried something like this a long time ago and it seems to work well... note this uses pre-2.49 versions of Blender but it should be possible to use in 2.57.

http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/Blender_track_modelling_tutorial

[ward]

Yeah i know, but they will need to be unwrapped too, and if i export my terrain into blender it runs VERY laggy (else i have no clue where to put the road on what height). I can also do it in sketchup, and then just model the terrain and everything, would save a lot of tris for the terrain too.

I don't understand that the geometry is there, but cannot be used for collision :s, they should fix this imho, as the feature is pretty much intirely useless without collision.

[kat]

Ideally you're supposed to model the track first and then fit the terrain to/around it, that way you always have the necessary 'flatness' associated with roads. It's notoriously difficult to do it the other way around and get a playable track because you end up with uneven surfaces and/or gaps where the road has to be smoothed out to allow vehicles to travel over the mesh properly (btw I don't think splines were supposed to be used for what you're doing which is why they don't have a collision option).

Try this. What I'd do in your situation (from what I guess you're trying to do) is model the track and it's immediate surroundings in Blender (it's easier to UVW map a track than you might think - just repeat tile and make use of UDKs internal lighting/vertex painting) and then fit your UDK terrain around the mesh. That's usually how 'road' based games are done, that way you can use a reasonably high poly count for localised detail (the track and immediate surrounds) and lower quality stuff for everything else. Incidentally, if you import the mesh just run the "decimate" modifier on it to knock the tris count right back and make it manageable, you're only really using it as a reference anyway so uber polycount doesn't matter.

[ward]

Then I will just model the terrain and roads in sketchup, as seperate meshes, one mesh/road, second best way imho. And my terrain is mostly flat anyway so it will save lots of tris too.

Splines would be very nice to use for this, since then you can do terrain and roads both in UDK, + you can re-use a few tiny meshes and use them for all roads in a large map. I was really looking forward to doing the roads like this nicely in the editor, i still might do some short alleys and such still with spline lost actors, without collision.