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…..

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

@micione said:

I used to SimLab obj importer. (But it is for a fee)
or you have to use MeshLab ( free)to transform the file .obj > .3ds .

great got mesh lab working thank you
now can i pose it in under a century

There's no posing in character generator, it's pipeline is designed to go straight into maya with 'humanik' rigged into it. Pose in in maya. Which Means learning how to do it and if you have maya.

Ahh nice one!
I'll have a go right away.
Can I ask - do you have any experience of posing these characters
I was going to use vertex tools and see how I get on.

I have just found Autodesks Character generator - https://charactergenerator.autodesk.com you have to sign in. (I'm calling it "CGen " just for the purposes of this post). And I'm playing with getting a model from CGen into SU.
The problem is the textures aren't coming across and my converter does show an option to convert to .3ds

CGen exports to .fbx
I have an Autodesk .fbx convertor
(Free from here - http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112%26amp;id=20481519)

but theres no option for the file to be converted to .3ds from the pull down list although the website states it convert TO .3ds.
the other two options are to convert to .dae and .obj
here are my results below.
is there anything i can do with the collada file or the .obj???

Hello All,
I have a job where there is a stunning back drop which is key to get right, with sight lines crucial to making it look good.
unfortunalty the backdrop is about 4km away. I have downloaded the relevant google earth images and terrain, all looks good apart from this Clipping plane. I have read that a clipping plane results from geometry very far away from the origin which is why I presume this is happening.

Is there a way i could avoid this clipping plane in this situation?

Cheers
C

On this web page the first movie shows Maya LT in action with its retoplogy tools and I was wondering, as I plan to use artisan more, if this was possible? Is there a plugin that can do it or if SU could actually be made to do something like this?

http://www.autodesk.com/products/maya-lt/features

SU isn't very happy when it's asked to push a lot of polygons around. There are probably other programs that can do something like this (does blender?)
Cheers
C

@jiminy-billy-bob said:

@cmeed said:

-All groups gone

The groups unique IDs are still present in your file, but they are not listed by Layers Panel serialized string. Don't know why...
Were layers still sorted, or did they revert back to Sketchup's default sorting ?

Did anyone else experienced this ?

The layers were not in any order.

Nope, Renderiza's plugin works great, no need to replicate the work [/quote]

all I'm saying is, ergonomically it would be better.... Thats all

updating a scene using a shortcut (in my case 'p')with Layer Panel Open now works - great stuff
Cheers
c

Hello Again - potential bug....
I opened my work from last night this morning - a popup saying the new version was out - downloaded

• closed layer panel (as nothing had changed) -
  -opened Layer panel again - could see there were new features - tried options, from the new pull down - nothing happened
• tried new 'move selection to highlighted area' didn't seem to work
  -closed Su
  _open SU
• opened layer Panel
  -All groups gone
  Layers still present

But
'Options' and 'move selection to highlighted layer' now work as expected. and I'm supposing the rest works too

(also when turning off render toolbar there's a big gap at the top.... suggest this render feature goes at the bottom no need to give such high status, you're going to use it for a short period while layers all the time....just a thought)

No Big issue for me on this project as I've finished but you better see if anyone else has had a problem

Keep up the great work - Fantastic plugin has changed my work flow tremendously
-just thought about your 'move to selected layer' how about 'move and rename' mmmmm interesting - you might be stepping on 'rename by layer plugin' toes but maybe you could get together - they work as a great accompaniment

c

Ahhhh there nice one!!!
now... what shortcut key to use ...
thanks

I have an idea....
Its struck me that as I work I'm naming as I go. If i do bulk renaming then i really need all the options of the window, If I'm naming as I go then I don't...
to save opening it each time could the last parameter/settings just be stored and a Shortcut key can be assigned. I just press the shortcut and viola .....
no need to open the window and change the settings
Speed increased
5p more earned
earlier home by three seconds
c

Here you go. this explains it in it simplist terms - but out in the feild when the lines are very long, orbiting, sometimes around, through and over things to find the other end can be difficult and if its slightly off axis, which is very common, Su locks and you have to zoom all the way in to find the end.

this is such a common task in my world i thought i'd mention it and see if theres a speedier way
c

great if it was shortcut friendly ....

Hello All,
Is there (......or can there be) a Plugin that acts like the offset line tool but joins the connecting edges to the newly created offset-ed line?
would save a lot of time orbiting from one end to the other and connecting them manually
Not sure if this exists wouldn't look out of o place in a lot of the suit of plugins designed for edges/lines.
cheers
c

hello again,
Still can't update layer using a shortcut key with LayersPanel open.
works fine when i close LayersPanel.
c

this is with release 0.3.2
same naming issue with names not changing in the LayersPanel - they are changing in the Layers Window though

I updated the plugin this morning. The layers were made yesterday. I closed down SU. restarted SU. captured film so its not happening with the layers or folders before the plugin was installed, as all were made yesterday
C

EDIT: in the time its taken me to write the above the layer has now changed to 'hello' in LayersPanel. just so you know...

@renderiza said:

You can make the content smaller by pressing ( ctrl - ). What is the resolution of your screen...can I see screen capture?

In the future maybe collapsible tabs may help but not sure.

Thanks

I never knew this!!! Duh!

c