Alright if you've seen my youtube video on the spinning material, you probably have been wondering how it actually is done. So due to demand from youtube, ehmm (
mrtickletickletiger), I am making a tutorial for them.
Ok first thing first you are going to need to make a cylinder within Maya and flatten it out. Next, is just personal preference just to make it easier, is to delete any faces on the side of the cylinder (they aren't really going to be needed and it's extra geometry anyway). Plus deleting those faces makes UVing a breeze
Now that they are deleted go up to Window->UV Texture Editor and your UVs should look like this
You are going to take one pair of UVs and move them so they are overlapping with the other
And you need to size up the UVs so that they touch all sides of the UV square space
Alright next thing is to export the cylinder using Actor X
For those of you who don't know what or how to use Actor X here is a link to install and how to access it
Ok now what you need to do is make a texture to make the spinning texture. I'm not going to tell you how and what to specifically use for your textures, just play around for the desired look you want. Just make sure that the texture is 512 x 512, 1024 x 1024, or 2048 x 2048. I wouldn't recommend going over 2048 just because it would be a huge image to import and the detail wouldn't really be needed.
Here's what mine came out looking like
See how the texture is shaped like the actual propeller and each propeller is centered toward the middle. You need to make sure that it is all centered. You really don't need to shorten the other propeller parts going sideways. You could actually make them go to the corners if you wanted to. It might make it easier that way. But I guess it's just my personal preference to be precise. Oh and make sure that the background is black, that will be pertinent in the upcoming steps.
Ok now that we have both the texture and the model ready let's open up UDK. The only reason I don't say UT3 editor too is because I haven't checked to make sure if it has the same components as UDK that we use. You could try if you want, but no promises. Ok, so I already have a helicopter model to go with the the propeller, so don't freak out. I'm still going to be showing you how to make the propeller.
Ok I'll start off by using the cube tool to add a 1024 x 1024 x 16 cube and adding a point light as well
From here you need to import your Cylinder and your texture. They should look like this is your browser.
I suggest keeping all assets in their assigned groups (Static Mesh, Textures, Materials, etc.)
Now right-click on the propeller texture and select Create New Material
You can name the Material whatever your heart desires
Double-click on the Material to open up the Material Editor
First go to the bottom and click on Blend Mode and choose Additive and check mark the Two Sided option. Next you are going to move your texture to the right by clicking on it and holding down ctrl+left click and moving your mouse. Ok we are going to make a copy of this texture by clicking on the texture and pressing ctrl+C and ctrl+V. Next we are going to use the Add material expression by pressing A and clicking in the Material Editor. Plug the node on the left side of the Add into the diffuse channel. And then you are going to take one of the copied textures and connect the node into the "A" node on the Add. We are going to now go to the right side of the material editor and look for and click and drag a Rotator material expression. It should be under the category of Coordinates. You need to plug the node on the left side from the Rotator into the UVs node of the Texture Sample we just used to plug into the "A" node of Add. After that you need to click on the Rotator expression and go to the bottom to it's settings and change the Speed to 10. The settings should look like this
Don't worry that the Material still looks like a checkerboard, we're almost done. In order to bring out the realism of the propeller we are using a copy of our texture and it will be rotating at a different speed in order to give off the effect of what the eye perceives. Ok so we need to add another Rotator material expression and connect the node to the copied texture samples UVs node. Again go to the Rotators settings and change the Speed to 15. It should look like this
Now, we are going to place something in front of the Texture Sample we just used. Press the M key and click in the material editor space to get the Multiply material expression.
Take the Texture Sample node on the left side and plug that into the "A" node on the Multiply. We need to give some number for the texture to be multiplied by in the "B" node so we need to hold down the 1 key and left-click in the material editor to get a Constant. Plug the Constant node into the "B" node on the Multiply and then click on the Constant and down to it's settings and change the R, which is the Red Channel, to 5. Now plug the left side node of the Multiply into the "B" node of the Add. That should be the final piece to make the material work. It should look like this when you are done.
Click on the Green Check Mark at the top of the material editor to compile and save the material.
now close out of the material editor and in the browser double click on the cylinder and that should open up the Static Mesh Editor. On the right side of the editor there should be a drop down that says LODinfo should look like this
Now go back to the Content Browser and click on the new material you just created to highlight it, switch back to the Static Mesh Editor and click the green arrow for material. The cylinder should now look really cool and awesome now and should look like this
Now exit out of the Static Mesh Editor and click and drag the cylinder from the Content Browser into the level and click the Build All button which looks like this
It should be at the top column of button towards the right side. After pressing it you should get a bunch of messages about the build, just exit out of them and ignore the errors for now. Once all of that is done, right click inside of the level and click play from here and Voila!
Should look like this, minus the Helicopter
