Scale / Unit Size recommendation sepecifcally Maya -> FBX

[winterkewl]

Hi Guys,

I'm currently experimenting with scale in my game trying to make the scale of the actual models be in line with what BEPU needs. I have read the forums and the advice always seems to be work as if 1 unit == 1 meter. So in MAYA I switched my units to be meters. Then I scaled the world and the player according to this new unit. The result was unexpected. When I brought the models into my game engine BEPU seems to think they are about 10 times larger than when they were in maya. I had to increase max acceleration, gravity etc etc to about 1000 to get any kind of "normal" behavior from the character controller with this newly scaled geometry.

Soo o o . . . I'm wondering, what's the best method to make sure that the level is scaled correctly when exporting from Maya as an FBX. Anyone got any tips/tricks?

Thanks in advance!

[Norbo]

The best approach isn't necessarily using 1 unit == 1 meter, but rather making it so 1 unit is a reasonable measurement of whatever is in the simulation. It's best to keep the numbers involved fairly 'normal,' meaning not too large, and not too small. Usually I recommend values between 0.5 and 10 for entity dimensions. The engine can easily handle things outside of that range in most cases, but it's a very safe target.

Basically, the engine doesn't care about what the numbers are called, just that they have appropriate values.

While I can't give you a single sure-fire modelling program->content pipeline->game solution, what I usually recommend is try a few different options out and see what the values look like at the end of the pipe. Often, sneaky unintuitive scaling values will make their way into the content. Try to figure out where these are and what path produces meshes and scales which obey the guidelines above, and then stick with that pipeline.