Importing a Model with Multiple Skins via Unreal Script

This guide will deal with Skeletal and Vertex Meshes (imported via UnrealScript and 3ds Max).

Skeletal Animated Meshes

If your model has more than one material applied to it, when you come to import it via UnrealScript it will only recognise the first Skin slot (Skins[0]). The other slots will still be there but they will have no effect on the model. This guide will show you how to fix that. This guide assumes you already know how to assign different materials to different polygons within 3ds Max. A basic understanding of Multi/Sub Object materials in 3ds Max would be an advantage, simply input “multi/sub object material 3ds max” into a search engine of your choice to learn more.

There are 3 rules that must be obeyed in order to fix the problem.

Rule 1: There should be only 1 Multi/Sub Object material for the scene named “skin”.
Rule 2: Each sub-material required on this should be named “skin0” through to “skin9”.
Rule 3: The material ID’s used on the polygons correspond to each sub-material in the Multi/Sub Object material. For example, marerial ID 1 = skin0.

Step 1: Open the material browser and create a new Multi/Sub Object material and apply it to the model. In this example image you can see the model has 3 different textures applied. I used simple colours to clearly show the separate textures.

Step 2: Assign the correct names to the correct slots. In this example the model has 3 different skins.

Step 3: Ensure that it is the name of the sub material itself that you change to “skin0” etc… The “name” of the material (in this case I have named them “Stump”, “Claw” and “Teeth”) is not important.

Thats it! Now when you come to export the mesh the material slots should be properly saved. You can check the ActorX log that is created when you export the mesh to see if you have done it correctly. The log should display some material information before the bone information.

A correct export will look like this in the log (notice how it states “Skin Index: 0, 1 and 2”).

	 = materials =
	 * Index: [ 0]  name: skin0
	   Original bitmap: WhiteTexture.dds  Path: C:\UT2004\MyPackage\Images
	    - Skin Index:  0
	   - render mode flags:
	 * Index: [ 1]  name: skin1
	   Original bitmap: RedTexture.dds  Path: C:\UT2004\MyPackage\Images
	    - Skin Index:  1
	   - render mode flags:
	 * Index: [ 2]  name: skin2
	   Original bitmap: BlueTexture.dds  Path: C:\UT2004\MyPackage\Images
	    - Skin Index:  2
   	- render mode flags:

An incorrect export will look like this (notice how it states “Skin Index: 0” for each skin slot).

   	 = materials =
	 * Index: [ 0]  name: 03 - Default
	   Original bitmap: WhiteTexture.dds  Path: C:\UT2004\MyPackage\Images
	    - Skin Index:  0
	   - render mode flags:
	 * Index: [ 1]  name: 05 - Default
	   Original bitmap: RedTexture.dds  Path: C:\UT2004\MyPackage\Images
	    - Skin Index:  0
	   - render mode flags:
	 * Index: [ 2]  name: 06 - Default
	   Original bitmap: BlueTexture.dds  Path: C:\UT2004\MyPackage\Images
	    - Skin Index:  0
   	- render mode flags:

TIP – The ActorX log holds important information concerning exporting, such as the number of skin slots created.