@tig said:

..I can see no reason for BitDefender to block this site.
Can you 'whitelist' it ?

Sure I can - it's just that Bitdefender didn't give me this warning the last time I visited the store. That's why I'm cautious.

Just now, bitdefender warned me for browsing to the pluginstore section of SketchUcation. This is new - it didn't warn me recently (last few weeks). Maybe something for your techies to investigate?

Have you tried mapping the uvs using Wrapr? Exporting Wrapr-mapped objects from SU (as fbx) works as intended for me.

@nlipovac said:

It is something cool to be done inside the engine itself.
So if you fill your scene with SubD models and apply subdivision what strain it takes on an engine to make subdivision?

See video of the 'entire process'...

https://youtu.be/yfbv4IPKBm4

Here you go - a very blobby stool. UV mapping distorted. No creasing (must be done manually in UE). I guess we can do a better job once the documentation is available.

Good tip! I just tried with the latest Unreal Engine version. OpenSubDiv is already available in the latest build (experimental-must be enabled by command line). I tested with a few models and had a lot of crashes but also some success.

It seems models imported as fbx work fine as well. Just select an imported object - go to MeshEditor - press 'Quadrangulate' and then you can add/remove subd levels.

See pic - visible in there a model by Box and Rich (from SubD examples topic) and a few tests of myself. Mapping / materials goes wrong quite often.

Curious to see at what point Epic will make it officially available with some documentation. There are already a few blueprint nodes visible in UE that suggest the subd level can be changed with scripting. OpenSubDiv in UE Could be something nice/big!

If someone has a nice/complex qft (subd) model available for testing, feel free to post or pm me.

Anyone knows if there's a way of exporting a quadFaceTools model to another program while keeping the quads logic intact - so you're not ending up with a standard triangle model? I expect not because it's a smart 'hack' by ThomThom...but hopefully I'm wrong.

I ask because apparently, in the next version of UnrealEngine they might/will support openSubDiv. If quads in SketchUp could be exported to UE that could be really nice for furniture, cars etc etc.

Videos of the presentations and maybe one in between in the lounge for getting an idea of the atmosphere would be nice indeed for us people at work who can't join the fun over there...

@rich o brien said:

Make sure your texture is square 1 : 1

I recently re-discoverd Wrapr and I'm loving it - great tool! Any chance non-square textures will be supported? (2048x1024)

@Valerostudio - Thanks for the suggestions. Already using PodiumBrowser and busy cleaning some of the models to fit my use.

Hi,

I'm looking for quad based furniture models. The models will be used in real-time applications (Oculus GO/Rift) so too much high-poly (>20k per furniture element) is not really an option.

I looked at some commercial sites but they are mostly too high poly, not the quality I'm looking for, or are not quad based. I prefer the quads to unwrap and maybe modify them and re-apply some other materials and mapping uvs.

Any suggestions? Maybe some models in SketchUcations model shop?

Max

impressive!

Just guessing;

• have you tried re-installing the drivers?
• are you sure SketchUp uses the Nvidia card and not an embedded gfx chip? The last time I saw something like that on my screen was with an old embedded Intel gfx solution.
• have you tried enabling/disabling fast-feedback in SketchUp?

Beautiful!
The only thing that distracts a bit is base of the knights - maybe they could have some rounded corners on its base? - its almost like they are intersecting the board.

In 1 month or so the new Nvidia gfx cards will be introduced. Always a chance the current cards will get a price drop.

Daily backup-ing to an external disk is a must (when doing projects commercially). Having to re-do everything and/or explain to a client the project will have a big delay is a nightmare scenario.
Edit: TIG's archiver is also nice for creating backups

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/

@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.

@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.

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?