This past week I've been creating a shadow effect to implement into the game using the things I learn from my research from the week before. First use photoshop to create the frames of the a flipbook texture. Next import it into UDK making sure to check the flipbook option.Once the flipbook texture is imported, edit its properties to select the number of vertical and horizontal frames, and the frame rate. Next make a new material and bring in the flipbook texture as a FlipbookSample and assign it to the emissive channel. On its own, the sample will end up tiled as it is projected from the light source. To fix this we add a panner connected to the sample's uvs input, and a constant with a value of .5 into the panner's time input. Finally, we select the use as light function option in the materials properties. Now add a light of any kind (I used a spotlight) to the level. Open its properties and look for the function options under lightComponent. click the blue triangle to add a function and, with the material selected in the content browser, click the green arrow to add the material to the light.


And that's it, the light should now project the flipbook texture in the level.

I've been researching material expressions at UDN to see how i may implement the shadow creatures in Ars Cerebra. I decide on using flipbook textures to create animated shadows. Thanks to Daniels finding a dynamic cloud shadow tutorial on youtube, I learned how to use light functions to project these shadows from a light source such as a spotlight.