UDK, a learning tool and great community

Again, it has been a while since I have written, but I am proud to say I just finished my first project on a full team, working as the lead texture artist. That being said, in the last 6 months I have learned almost as much as I did in the last 2 years.

Most of that knowledge involves learning the value of smooth pipelines for assets, communication, and accepting responsibility for the job you are given. That aside (and probably more on that later), The project itself was developed, and finished in the UDK.

For those who do not know what those 3 letters stand for, I can explain a bit. The UDK stands for the Unreal Development Kit. It is a free (or close to free, assuming you don't make over around 5000$) version of the Unreal 3 (or more accurately 3.5) engine, by Epic Games. While you do not have everything that was used for such titles as Gears of War 2, you do have access to the full editor, all the scripting, and some of the source code, as well as a few complete unreal 3 levels, assets and everything.

Officially the UDK is still in it's beta phase, and is still being updated monthly by Epic. That being said, it is and has been fully functional for quite a while now. Most of the updates have just been new features and minor tweaks.

For my part in the project, I was responsible for learning a major part of the editor. Because I was inexperienced in that area, I set out to learn everything I could about the UDK, specifically what I was responsible for (the Material Editor, a tool responsible for combining texture maps into finished materials to apply to models).

Over the next 6 months I combed both written documentation, joined and became an active participant in the online community, and looked over every epic left for me to look at in the install files of the UDK.

Between the 3 of those I was able to learn quite a bit, more than most my fellow students and with that knowledge, help our team complete the game. My advice to those reading (if you are a student) is this:

Check out the UDK. It is a great tool, with awesome accessibility, and for the most part solid documentation. It gives you a great chance to learn how your 3d work gets into an engine, and to a certain extent, what goes on behind the scenes. On top of all that, the community, which is large and growing fast, is great. Within a few posts I was in contact with some of the best and brightest using the UDK, and was getting quality advice across the board. The last benefit is a great starting point to get involved in a project of your own. There are tons of Mod teams and indie games starting up and they are always looking for artists.

That's all for now. More later.

Alex