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Welcome to the UDK Content Creation Home
Welcome to the Unreal Development Kit Content Creation section of UDN, with all the details you need to get started and become an expert with the award-winning Unreal Engine 3 technology. If you are just getting started visit Getting Started, or check out the glossary of Unreal Engine terminology.

For information on UnrealEd and Level Creation, please visit UDK Level Creation Home.

Don't forget to check out the Content Blog.

Tools and Utilities
   • UnrealFrontEnd for UDK
   • ActorX: How to obtain and use the ActorX plugin for exporting skeletal meshes and animation.
   • Swarm: Overview of Unreal Swarm

Textures and Materials
Creating And Importing Textures
   • Texture Support and Settings: Information on engine and hardware texture support.
   • Creating Normal Maps: Practical advice and downloadable resources for creating normal maps
   • Creating Shade Maps: Quick guide for creating shade maps using 3D Studio Max
   • Importing Textures: A tutorial on getting textures into Unreal Engine3
   • Texture Properties: Explains the meaning of the various texture properties
   • Flipbook Textures: An overview of flipbook textures
   • Creating and Importing Fonts: How to import true type fonts
   • Taking Better Photos for Textures: Tips on taking photos to use as texture references.

Materials
   • Material Editor User Guide
   • Material Instance Editor User Guide
   • Materials Tutorial: A tutorial on creating materials
   • Materials Basics: Introduction to basic materials
   • Materials Compendium: A description of all material expressions available
   • Instanced Materials: Explains how material instancing works
   • Material Instance Constant: A guide to understanding the Material Instance Constant object and parameter inheritance
   • Lit Translucency: An overview of how to use statically lit translucency
   • Materials with Post Processing: Details the use of Materials in the Post Process system
   • Material Masks: Creating masks algorithmically using Material expressions .
   • Creating Hair Using Alpha: Creating hair using materials and meshes in Unreal Engine 3.
   • Custom Lighting: How to use the custom lighting model.

Static Meshes
   • Static Mesh Editor User Guide
   • Importing Static Mesh Tutorial: A tutorial on getting non-animated meshes and geometry into the Unreal Engine
   • Unwrapping meshes for light-maps: Light-maps have special constraints on the UV coordinates they use. This document explains those constraints
   • Collision Reference: Guide to working with collision
   • Mesh Simplification Tool: Allows you to reduce the geometric complexity of static mesh assets on a per-level basis.

Animation and Skeletal Meshes
   • Animation Overview
   • AnimSet Editor User Guide
   • AnimTree Editor User Guide
   • Importing Skeletal Mesh Tutorial: A tutorial on getting animated meshes and animations into the Unreal Engine
   • Importing Skeletal LODs: How to import a lower LOD (Level Of Detail) version of a skeletal mesh
   • Importing Animations Tutorial: How to get mesh animations into the Unreal Engine from PSA files, as well as placing SkeletalMesh Actors in a level
   • Animation Compression Dialog: Explains the options available in the AnimSet Editor's animation compression dialog.
   • Animation Nodes: Description of the base Animation Nodes in the Unreal Engine.
   • Creating Animations: A description of the content pipeline for getting animations into the Unreal Engine.
   • Additive Animations: Guide to creating and using additive animations.
   • Root Motion: How to use Root Motion in the Unreal Engine.
   • Animation Mirroring: How to set up and use the Animation Mirroring feature.
   • Using Skeletal Controllers: Guide to creating different types of bone controllers for a Skeletal Mesh.
   • FaceFX: Explains how to use FaceFX for character facial animation.
   • PhysicalAnimation: Information on combining physics and animation.
   • Morph Targets: Overview of importing a static Morph Target, adding it to an AnimTree, and controlling it from code.

Physics and Vehicles
   • Physics Asset Tool (PhAT) User Guide
   • Physical Material: Show the attributes of a physical material and details what they do
   • Physics Constraint Reference: A guide to the various settings that can be used in the Unreal Engine to set up joints within the physics system
   • Physics Damping And Friction: Explanation of how to use various damping and friction properties exposed by the physics system
   • Fracture Tool: Illustrates the features and use of the Fracture tool .
   • Setting Up Vehicles: Explains how to create vehicles in a 3D package, import them into the engine and get them working in-game

Effects
   • Cascade Emitter Editor User Guide
   • Post Process Editor User Guide
   • Particle System Reference
   • Particle Examples: A breakdown of some of the uses of particles
   • BeamEmitterReference: Describes the Beams system and relevant parameters
   • Particles SubUV Tutorial: A tutorial on creating sprite-based particle emitters that utilize sub-UV image selection for per-particle animation
   • Depth Bias Blend: Description of the DepthBiasBlend? material expression.
   • Distributions: Distributions are used in particle systems and sound systems
   • Fake Mesh Lighting: Fake lighting on Meshes (or mesh particles)
   • Fluid Surfaces: Documentation for Fluid Surfaces and how to affect them .
   • Lens Flare Editor User Guide
   • SpeedTree
   • Animated trails using particles

User Interface

Cinematics
   • Matinee User Guide
   • Mastering Unreal Cinematic Sequences
   • Creating Cinematics: Content pipeline for using the Unreal Engine to create in-game cinematics and cut scenes
   • Matinee AnimControl Track: Instructions to use Matinee's AnimControl? Track with advanced character animation blending.
   • Curve Editor User Guide

Music and Sound
   • Sound Cue Editor User Guide
   • Audio System: A detailed description of the platform agnostic layer of the audio system.
   • Sound Actors: Explains the different type of ambient sound Actors you can use in your level.
   • Ambient Zones: Information about Ambient Zones in the Unreal audio system.
   • Distance Attenuation Models: Information about Attenuation and the Distance Model in the Unreal audio system.