Sketchup to Unreal

Hi everyone,

I just did a 3D model for an small apartment in Sketchup. I exported it as a .dae file (Collada file) and I want to import it into Unreal.
I used the Autodesk FBX Converter to get a .fbx file from the .dae but when importing into Unreal I can assign the materials correctly or they don’t render fine.

Is there any tutorial around to import a model made on sketchup into unreal? I’ve searched but what i’ve found is old or no longer applies. Please help me out on this one. I want to do realistic rendering on this apartment me and my gf just bought.

Thanks in advance

You’re better off using Blender than Sketchup

Sketchup pro have FBX export.

You can do something good with sketchup

hello, a while ago i also started learning 3d stuff with sketchup, too. its easy to start and checkout if you like 3d modelling, but sooner or later you’ll get problems. i dont know how far, you can create now uv-maps, collision models and lightmaps in sketchup (shadow bugs later). when i was last time in there, it wasnt.
however, if you really interessered in it, get into maya or blender or max. if iam wrong, please correct me. problem ist get into it. thats another thing -.-.

edit:
btw. your modelling looking good. i’ve you’re lucky and going to use blender, max or maya your modells aren’t f***ed up in some kind of way. but its also easy recreating it, if you done it thousand times, with maya, max or blender :slight_smile:

should also say, that my most knowledge with sketchup was with udk 3/ Ro2 SDK. so no warranty about what i said ^^.

i made a basic model in sketchup, then i import to maya for change the pivot point and import to UE4, but nothing change, UE4 seems ignore that pivot . what i miss? forget something?

The pivot is always at 0,0,0, so you need to move your object location to 0,0,0 before you export

why sketchup not blender

One reason me and others like sketchup over blender, is that you have access to the google warehouse which greatly increases the amount of content for your game. Thats why, besides blender being un-intuitive, imo is inferior to sketchup for simple prop making.

oh ok. THX

Use Blender, Sketchup can be only used for concept art.

You can export from Sketchup using the Collada format then using CaffeinatedBits drag and drop fbx converter. So far it’s worked pretty well, just note that it seems to be a crapshoot whether or not the materials are placed correctly.

The screenshots of the models you provides are rather “complex” meaning I believe you would be better off creating smaller pieces of that whole structure and then putting it back together again inside UE4. Not only will it run better but collisions will be a lot simpler. (I dont even think sketchup can DO collisions) :stuck_out_tongue:

i check that the other day, you can export with collision for UE4 in sketchup,
you make a mesh collision and rename it to UCX_Meshname before import and work.

Look at my post. Its extremely easy to do I just figured it out last night!!

I am confused with the license terms to use the models can we use them for commercial games or not?. But when do they make those licensing models simple to understand.

I don’t understand this sketchup apologetics, how can you consider a primitive blocking out package a tool for gamedev if you can’t even control the topology there?
I don’t want to start any flame but the idea of using sketchup for anything serious is beyond me. Nothing against SU itself, it’s brilliant for concepts/blocking
but saying it’s a “3d package” is like saying a magnifier is a “scientific tool”.

SketchUp makes me cry. It produces Overlapping UVs even on simple meshes. In UE4 after lightning build even with UV Channel 1 it looks like it’s totally messed up, also the shadow is extremely low resolution.

can you tell me how to export collision from sketchup to UE4? i just can’t, i rename it to UCX_meshname, but it can’t work…please help me. thansk!

From what I read, it appears you can use them for pretty much anything.

For the things I (would like to) do with the Unreal Engine; an easy integration with SketchUp would be a “match made in heaven”. :smiley:

In my dream scenario : I would save the skp; load it in Unreal; generate a “UV / Light map” based on the colors (faces)** in SketchUp and then add/change textures in Unreal.

Trying to do this “UV / Light mapping” in Blender (from a SketchUp model) is at the moment really spoiling all the fun I have with Unreal.

** maybe some “point and click interface” to rotate / click the connecting (texture) faces :slight_smile:

Hi NanoMind,

The problem you’ve run into is a common one for those who use what is considered to be an Architectural Viz software into a game engine that needs to have things setup for optimization and run-time. UVs have always been a big part of game development along with Lightmapping in Unreal. These two go hand in hand when wanting to have your model look great!

While there are improvements that will be made to Unreal Engine 4 in the future I’m not sure if Unreal will completely replace 3D software that allows you to have full control over your UVs and Lightmap UVs. This has been a vocal issue with users of Sketchup and other similar programs that don’t use UVs like 3Ds Max, Maya, and Blender.

Thank you for the feedback though! It certainly is heard and Epic does look into ways that can try to accommodate those if there is a true need for it from the community. This however does require time and research to look at possibilities.

Thank you!