Unreal 4 Engine

cmeed · 22 Apr 2014, 10:39

Has anyone had a look at Unreal 4???

It seems they've had a shift of direction trying to get more developers to use it. It now has a monthly subscription for the complete software. Also, a Marketplace is under construction where models and materials and more can be bought and sold. There's tons of tutorials especially aimed at the beginner that I've pawed over. I've spent more time looking than playing, some of the effects are very impressive. I was wondering if any sketchup people have had a look?

apart from one tutorial, there's seems to be a lack of sketchup support and little integration - the pipeline is .fbx orientated. A format I've had little experience using in sketchup but i got a model in there and textured (but i thought it should have been textured already when i imported .... but hey I hope i find out what went wrong or if you CAN import with textures in the right place - as i say I've only dabbled)

It does look better than Lumion (even the sneak Peak) but that's a discussion point I'd like to open. Reflections seem a doddle in UE4, the material system is very impressive and as many lights (point,spot - emissive materials too) as one could want. All things i had issue with when testing Lumion. Plus Lumion's hefty price take didn't way up with what came out.

At the moment I'm still very happy with using Thea render, Amazing product! but I'm curious to see whats out there....
c

Krisidious · 22 Apr 2014, 11:26

(www.unrealengine.com)

cmeed · 23 May 2014, 11:24

So I have played and played - watched many videos on unreal4 and i have to say it really looks amazing. Unfortunately, sketchup isn't making life easy. exporting a mesh using .fbx and importing into unreal4 is relatively easy but the texture UV are all overlapping.
my understanding of UVs are limited as I've never really used them having been a sketchup user for so long they are not as prominent as they are in other programs - Maya, 3dsMax and blender - and I'm just learning how they are used in game engines.
looking through Unreal Answerhub and UnrealForums there a few sketchupers trying to make it work but the forums answers are - "learn blender" or "learn maya" etc - yeh easy for them
Unreal4.2 is imminent, which is able to import .obj - will the same overlapping uvs happen - probably but I'm hopeful…..

pilou · 23 May 2014, 16:20

Does this better than Unity ?

cmeed · 23 May 2014, 17:21

Looks great! Is it out yet?
I've seen unity but never played. Is there code involved in creating anything. Looks great though!

pilou · 23 May 2014, 20:34

Not yet number 5 but number 4 is yet sufficient for some little things !

cmeed · 23 May 2014, 20:45

theres this…. nice and relevant to this forum

then theres this….ohhh

and then this … ohh bit frightened

miikka1978 · 24 May 2014, 19:10

@cmeed said:

So I have played and played - watched many videos on unreal4 and i have to say it really looks amazing. Unfortunately, sketchup isn't making life easy. exporting a mesh using .fbx and importing into unreal4 is relatively easy but the texture UV are all overlapping.
my understanding of UVs are limited as I've never really used them having been a sketchup user for so long they are not as prominent as they are in other programs - Maya, 3dsMax and blender - and I'm just learning how they are used in game engines.
looking through Unreal Answerhub and UnrealForums there a few sketchupers trying to make it work but the forums answers are - "learn blender" or "learn maya" etc - yeh easy for them
Unreal4.2 is imminent, which is able to import .obj - will the same overlapping uvs happen - probably but I'm hopeful…..

I have similar challenges. I don't know too much about UV mapping, etc. but I would like to bring my sketchup models into game engines. Actually, I have been using Unity because of the free version. I have also been experimenting Blender but it is such a big change that i have not yet put my time there. Lately I have been checking some other ways to do the UV mapping and texturing with different tools like Roadkill, substance designer, substance painter. I think that I am still quite far away from having good results. Anyway, I think that game engines are developing so fast that those could replace render engines in near future if you don't need to have 100% realistics results.

I would be interested to know if there are any people here who are using sketchup models with game engines like Unreal or Unity.

cmeed · 19 Aug 2014, 08:47

heres a guy called Koolaa
doing amazing stuff in the Arch viz world on UNREAL4
there all just test but i think look very realistic.....
don't think he's using sketchup through....
https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?28163-ArchViz-Lighting

iichiversii · 20 Aug 2014, 22:34

I used sketchup to both build and texture all models in this game, the game engine i used was Unity, i never had a problem with my UVs when importing into unity
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=81%26amp;t=58212

cmeed · 22 Aug 2014, 09:55

Great Game! nice one.

with regard uv's - the pipeline into unity seems much more simple or fluid. unreal4 (at the moment and theres no contrary signs) think SU isn't a major player in the games world or part of games production. your fantastic game example shows they're wrong of course. so theres no easy way to get your mesh into unreal with out messed up uvs. coming from sketchup world where uv's are not used like other 3d software, they're non-existant, only when sketch-uv and thu-paint came out did i realise there use and worth.
Unreal bods have explained a way of getting a mesh in with using a 2nd uv channel but its still beyond my meagre skills it seems - as it didn't go so well.
I am currently signed up to a years subscription to MayaLT to see if i can build on the learning i gained from an online course which I had to abandon. It goes slowly.

the quality of Unreal4 over Unity 4 and even 5 (comparing the unity5 youtube clip) seems way better? the shaders look amazing? reflections and textures unrivalled? what do you think iichiversii?

iichiversii · 22 Aug 2014, 11:14

I agree, Unreal4 is beautiful, but cryengine looks even better imo, but the simplicity of Unity is second to none, Unity is growing fast is the preferred game engine to indie game developers, over the last 5 yrs Unity has changed so much and i can see it dominating all game engines in the future, i also agree with the UV mapping in SU, its so behind the times and should be addressed, but this is an argument that's been going on for yrs, Google and now Trimble never saw the benefits of SU for game development, iv seen Naughty dog, cloud imperium, and even Kens beautiful models used for sim city and Rift, all developed in SU first, then used in other 3D applications like Maya or 3D Max to be cleaned up for game use, i designed I,Marble in SU, textured and so on all in SU, never did i bring it into other applications other than Unity, but it did have some problems, but workable, the game turned out better than i taught, but 5 yrs ago SU was unusable in game engines, it just wasn't compatible, but its changing slowly, i don't think Trimble really care for game development so they more than likely wont develop it further for us game developers, its a pity tho, i even see that there has been an SU game developers stand at the last two basecamps, i believe Trimble need to look into this not just for game developers but i can see rendering engines being obsolete in the not so distant future and replaced with game engines, game engines are so much better, not because they are free to use but because we can see our creations in a virtual environment, iv even used my models in an environment where you can experience it using the oculus rift, a virtual reality headset, and its amazing, Facebook even bought out the company this yr for 2 billion, if they see potential then why don't we, i can see this also being used for showcasing a virtual plan of a house before its even built in the real world, i'm currently working on a virtual game for the oculus rift and all models are developed in SU, in fact i joined a community for indie game developers and i haven't come across any indie game companies that don't use SU, Trimble need to wake up and smell the coffee, make it more game friendly, UV friendly, most think that game engines only use quads, they don't, all game engines convert quads to tris, the most basic of polygons, quads are only an illusion in other 3D applications, UV mapping is the main issue, i could talk for hrs about this topic but im gonna let it go because in reality Trimble wont do anything about it, unless a memeber of the SU team can prove me wrong and tell us different, i hope they do

cmeed · 22 Aug 2014, 11:44

dont be quite just yet....
what is the issue with SU uvs? i know very little about what the differences are between a model created in Maya with its uv's and a model created in SU exported with the fbx exporter. do you? is it a situation that a plugin wizard could look at? Playup created a plugin for SU to udk, but don't think theres much happening last time i looked for unreal4.

Cryengine looks great, unreal looks great, unity a close third - can you get reflections in unity? i saw candela... seen that?

I'm thinking exactly like yourself regarding modern game engines and their rendering power becoming the norm. i want the reflections, textures, atmosphere particles and a little animation to impress clients in meetings about what we've designed. (mostly Award shows and TV sets designs....thats all)

solo · 22 Aug 2014, 11:46

Cryengine eye candy.

cmeed · 22 Aug 2014, 11:50

nice...

AdamB · 23 Aug 2014, 19:25

For a bit of fun, I recreated one of these in SketchUp this morning. Came out pretty well.

iichiversii · 24 Aug 2014, 23:29

Adsm s that just using lightup or in unity? im aware lightups lighting can be imported directly into unity and textures can also be baked, can you link us to a tutorial on how to do these, nice render btw

cadmunkey · 25 Aug 2014, 09:16

Very impressive Adam, love the materials. Is the depth of field an option in Lightup?

AdamB · 27 Aug 2014, 09:27

@iichiversii said:

Adsm s that just using lightup or in unity? im aware lightups lighting can be imported directly into unity and textures can also be baked, can you link us to a tutorial on how to do these, nice render btw

Its just modelled in SketchUp and rendered in LightUp.

Yes, you can export your lit model from LightUp using Autodesk FBX which will be automatically ingested into Unity.
Or you can export as Collada DAE.

There is a very old video tutorials showing exporting to Unity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNI2RjNsRwY)
I'll see if I can cook up a new one using the latest version of LightUp and Unity.

AdamB · 27 Aug 2014, 09:36

@cadmunkey said:

Very impressive Adam, love the materials. Is the depth of field an option in Lightup?

Yes, during Tourtool you can adjust the Depth of Field using the DOF slider. The focus point is taken in the direction the camera is pointing and marked by a small red circle on the surface that is being focused.

You can lock the current focus distance by clicking on the small padlock icon. You can then change your view direction but have a fixed focus distance.. So the workflow was to look at the floor tiles, lock focus distance and then look at the wall further away with the result that the floor is sharply in focus, the walls are blurred.