UT3: 3Ds Max settings for Exporting to Unreal

UT3: Unit/grid setup for 3ds max

The best way to describe the understanding of unreal units is found here:
One UU doesn't actually mean anything; it's just something within the engine. An arbitrary scale is used for game programming because the scale may change from one game to another, one game may be an FPS, while another may be a space sim with several planets on an entire map. Each game picks a scale to work at: the size of players and objects, which means there is an effective conversion factor between UU and real physical units. In the Unreal series of games, this is generally held to be roughly:

• 256 UU = 487.68 cm = 16 feet.
• 1 meter = 52.5 UU
• 1 foot = 16 UU
• 1 cm = 0.525 UU
• 1 UU = 0.75 inches.

Because of the fact that each game is different, you will have to find a scale that works best for you based on your world scale, but to match the grid size in unreal with 3DS Max, it is pretty easy.

Inside Max, click on 'Customize/Unit Setup'. When the 'Unit Setup' window pops up, click the circle beside 'Generic Units'.

Next, right click on your 'snaps toggle' button in your top tool bar to open up your 'grid and snap settings'.

Click on the 'Home Grid' tab, and make sure your grid spacing is set to 1.

To show the comparison between max and unreal, I am using this simple box with these dimensions:

L – 40
W – 80
H – 50

When you import anything into unreal, the grid may not match. The small X you see at the base of the red square to the left is a 14 unit wide grid. Let’s see it in unreal.

The left side of the image is the box in game. The right side of the image is the top view in wire frame mode showing the grid below; however instead of being 80 units, it appears to be only 5.


The 5 units you see here are a visual representation of the unit snapping the UT engine has.

Inside the UT engine, click on 'View/Drag Grid' and check to see what unit grid setting you have. Currently it is set to 16 for me. If you times 16 by 5, you get 80, which equals the units you modeled it inside max.

The average human Unreal Units (UU) height is roughly: 90-96 uu

96 UT units, divided by 16 (16 UU = 1 Foot) = 6 feet in game. Average height of a man.

If you select 8 and then 4, you can see the grid becomes more detailed. This directly ties into grid snapping and modular building, and why they are so important.

On a side note, if you're not too sure how far two pieces are from each other, or the overall units of some geometry, simply middle click and drag, and a ruler will measure from point A to point B.








I hope this little tutorial has helped you out. i thank you for your time.