3DS Max to Unreal: Datasmith

Development Pipeline & Plugins
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1

Hi all,

I’m new to Unreal and I am trying to develop a standardized workflow for 3DS Max to Unreal but have encountered a few hiccups with datasmith.
The end result is usually a scene without any maps or a scene that is too heavy and ends up taking two hours to open up again.

I have a few questions that I think might be causing the issue.

  1. Can datasmith read vray proxies?
  2. Should I convert all my bump maps to normal maps or does datasmith take care of that?
  3. Are there any additional steps I should take to prepare a Max scene to Unreal?
  4. Are the missing textures something i can resolve in Unreal or Max?

Any response to these questions would be great.

Thank you

2
  1. yes
  2. it does that for you
  3. not really, though I’d recommend using reasonable scenes and removing super high poly items like ever motion trees and such.
  4. I use a plugin called “relink bitmaps” to fix missing textures in 3ds max. If they’re missing in max, they won’t import into unreal.
3

for 3) you can use the new datasmith attributes modifier for that and more

for 4) the native asset tracker of max can let you repart missing assets.

hope that helps!