Datasmith - Unreal ? Anyone tried yet?
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Just looking for a few comments - I’ve seen a couple of YouTube tuts that’s it.
Cheers Chris. -
Tried it.
- Its easy to get models from SU to Unreal.
- Lightmap uvs are generated automatically.
- materials are converted to simple Unreal materials (instances so easy to change).
- Texture sizes are converted to 2^n sizes.
- smoothing is exported
- The exporter adds a lot of extra nodes to the hierarchy in Unreal which makes finding objects a bit hard if you need to.
~ Haven't tried with complex (blobby) models and expect that to still be a problem (the lightmap uvs).
~ Even with the exporter, you still will have to make a 'clean' model in SketchUp or you won't get nice results.
~ Spending time learning Unreal will be necessary to improve your results.Its still under development so some things might change / improve.
Any things in particular you would like to know?
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I saw lots of tears (on forums\FB) about capricious lighting solution in UE. People spend so many efforts trying to sort light leaks\shadows\reflections artefacts out. That's pretty discouraging
Waiting for Vlado to roll out Vray substitution for stock light building. -
@rv1974 Unreal is not dummy proof indeed. Its a very powerful game engine but it requires people to model & texture & lay out UVs 'nicely' or it won't work (well)(yet).
If you have overlapping geometry in SketchUp, if you don't alter the lightmap resolution of the objects in Unreal, etc etc the results won't be good.
In a few years, GFX cards will be powerful enough to do just real-time lighting (no more lightmaps needed). At that time, a lot of of the problems people complain about might be gone.
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Too much damn work, is the resulting render/animation worth the amount of work and time you need to put into it?
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Apparently this guy has more or less OK geometry- thick walls, proper UVs and still.. light leaks. And pay attention how many efforts were put to polish the things just for a small room. I wonder what to do in case of high-rize compound?
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The idea is uber seductive- after baking you've got endless animations\ interactive walkthroughs 'for free', but those little nuances he he..
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@rv1974 I had a look at the video.
Those fixes shouldn't be necessary if the model has no overlapping geometry or holes/gaps.
I'm curious what lightmap resolution settings were used for the objects. If these were at default / low pixel density - artifacts will occur - even at production settings.But indeed, it always takes more work than anticipated. It isn't commercially viable (for me) but I do it anyway because it helps my design process, its fun and it helps in the decision making process for client.
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Are 'thick walls' a MUST in UE? I strongly prefer to work with 100% thin geometry which give me super light and easy-to-edit models (ArchViz-EXTEROR) with rock-solid performance in Vray-Max.
Is it a bad habit for UE? -
Unreal ignores back faces (unless you apply a two sided material) so some thickness is necessary.
Edit: regarding thickness, just keep in mind that backfaces in SketchUp are 'transparent' in Unreal. They wont generate shadow. As long as you model nicely (front faces where they should be) all should go well.
Maybe this old article is a nice read about converting a model to UE;
https://www.ronenbekerman.com/striving-for-real-time-photorealism-in-architectural-visualisation/
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