Unreal 4 Engine

cmeed

Curious that is not existing an SKP direct format!
In Unity you import directly an .SKP file!

Maybe there is a trick like Load the .SKP file ( Texture + material) in Unity
Save it with a format compatible with UE4
Relaod it inside UE4

theres a few post on the ue4 forums about supporting .skp but they don't seem to want to. what you will now ask is what format to export from SU - .obj but make sure you follow some rules regarding your textures and Mapping them correctly see previous post for youtube link. you can use .fbx i think. I've managed to get a simple model in tonight and build some lighting. Best i've done so far but still theres errors

maybe going through Unity is a good idea, I've not heard anyone try.

cmeed

@kaas said:

@cmeed said:

Try this.....

I just had a look at the videos. Its nice he/she did take the effort to try to explain his/her 'workflow'. I would suggest though to look for another source of information to really get a really useful workflow going for more complex scenes, nice results and acceptable calculation times.

As I said above I managed to get a model in to UE4 tonight. lots of errors though. Although none visible as far as I could see.

I have 2 questions you may know the answer to
have you tried getting a textured sphere or a shere with an image on it? I tried but when UE4 compiled shaders it took ages, it took each individual face as a new texture - I've tried a few times all the same

the other question
I'm looking to import the whole model and not place individual items ( i do this by dragging all the meshes that have been imported onto the view port (easy)) but my scale is really off - do you know the method of setting this up on export or during import (there's an option (for .obj) to use model units or millimetres etc and a scale option in UE4)

tonight i've only exported as an .obj, have you used .fbx?
(that's 3 questions)

kaas

@cmeed said:

I have 2 questions you may know the answer to
have you tried getting a textured sphere or a shere with an image on it? I tried but when UE4 compiled shaders it took ages, it took each individual face as a new texture - I've tried a few times all the same

I did import more blobby objects into UE but.. I needed to pass them through Blender first.
SketchUp does 'strange things' with mapping coordinates / textures on blobby objects - they seem to turn into small unique materials when exporting to obj (look into the export folder and you will see lots of small textures).
Unreal Engine needs a second uv channel for storing the lightmaps. Sketchup can't create that 2nd channel so Unreal automatically creates it during import (if you have that option checked) by copying the first channel and re-arraging it into the 0-1 UV space(no repetition).
Result in UE: lots of small unique materials, all with a default size lightmap which takes 'ages'.
In short: for blobby objects, I export to obj -> import in Blender -> create a second UV channel for the lightmap with everything layed out flat, all into the 0-1 UV space -> import into UE with the option 'generate lightmaps' NOT checked -> succes

@cmeed said:

the other question
I'm looking to import the whole model and not place individual items ( i do this by dragging all the meshes that have been imported onto the view port (easy)) but my scale is really off - do you know the method of setting this up on export or during import (there's an option (for .obj) to use model units or millimetres etc and a scale option in UE4)

Internally UE uses centimeters. I normally model in mm's myself so during fbx-export from SU, in the export options I set the units to cm's.

@cmeed said:

tonight i've only exported as an .obj, have you used .fbx?
(that's 3 questions)

In SU, I export to fbx for more simple objects like walls, floors, etc
I use obj for objects that are more complex or causing trouble in UE and run them through Blender first for applying an extra Lightmap UV channel. From Blender I export to fbx again.

It seems complicated but once you have this workflow going its easy. Maybe have another read in my quickstart that I posted a while ago in this thread? http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80%26amp;t=57392%26amp;start=60#p576468

Good luck! If you have any more questions, fire away

kaas

@pilou said:

Does it normal it works not in "Local" so you must have start from Internet site of UE4 ?
I start UE from a normal icon on my taskbar. If you start the editor without an internet connection it throws an error but on the bottom of the screen there is an option for using it 'offline'.

solo

Unreal 4.10 released:

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-10-released

jenujacob

forgive me if its a stupid question... but since UE4 is free for archViz now... why cant say someone take the source code and make a dumbed-down-architect-friendly version which would work similar to lumion/twinmotion and lumenrt??

cmeed

Great idea. Go on then ....
In the unreal marketplace there is an architect aimed bit of kit. It's called HAL. I think. Have a look. I think I mentioned it in an earlier post here. It's not twinmotion/lumion and, like your thinking, ue4 could easily be similar. Certainly cheaper. Lumion looks great now but for the price.

jenujacob

@cmeed said:

Great idea. Go on then ....
In the unreal marketplace there is an architect aimed bit of kit. It's called HAL. I think. Have a look. I think I mentioned it in an earlier post here. It's not twinmotion/lumion and, like your thinking, ue4 could easily be similar. Certainly cheaper. Lumion looks great now but for the price.

Well i didnt say I would be able to do it
Just putting out some ideas for some programming geniuses out here!
edit: Just looked at HAL... its seems very close to what I was suggesting!! thanks Cmeed!

cmeed

It is good isn't it? If only all those other confusing bits where hidden away and you had a lovely UI with a couple of bars at the bottom that magically altered everything just the way you liked it!....

(Actually this is what Lumion et al do and is maybe why the results all look similar, no dis - just saying).

pilou

@unknownuser said:

but on the bottom of the screen there is an option for using it 'offline'.

Yep! That the local option! THX!

jo-ke

interessting