Workflow / importing / materials

Hi

Firstly, I’m completely new to UnReal engine.

I’m looking at a workflow that allows me to use SketchUp for the primary design of environments, which are then imported into UnReal for detailing, lighting & rendering etc. I can export and import FBX & OBJ formats. However when I have the object in UnReal, I struggle to edit it. For example the walls (shown below) have a wall tile then a small tile dado and then paint up to the ceiling. In UNReal it’s just one plain object and if I apply a texture, I cannot get all 3 finishes onto the object.

I first tried importing the entire building as a single object but had the same problem. So I thought I needed to import each object independently and reassemble the scene in UnReal. However, as with these walls, where there are more than 1 texture I find this challenge. It’s seems fine if the object is a single texture (e.g. a white ceramic toilet pan). Is there a way of editing an imported object, to the point of making it native to UNReal and therefore being able to overcome this type of challenge?

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Exporting the whole building as one mesh is almost never a good idea, because you will need to use a huge lightmap texture to cover all that area.
I usually split up my walls at 90 degree angles into seperate objects to prevent lightmap seams from showing up, unless they are very long. In that case I would cut them halfway and try to cover up the seam somehow.

As for material assignment, normally when working in a modeling program like 3DS max you would assign different material ID’s to an object that needs multiple materials/textures, which would give it a Material Element slot for each material on an object.
I am not familiar with Sketchup myself so I’m not sure if they have a similar system, but this guy seems to got it working in his video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPY0va3wA-k

Thanks, that helped. Setting up in SketchUp is important - need to make sure all objects have front faces visible.