[4.7.6] 3DS FBX export: TurboSmooth and smoothing groups lost in UE4

Development Pipeline & Plugins
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1

Hi there,

I have a large car model in 3DS Max 2015 with subdivision surfaces (TurboSmooth). The model consists of about 50 different meshes which are packed in several groups:

1226×601 184 KB

The whole model of the car has about 1.2 Mio Polys (after TurboSmooth was applied). The most parts have “iterations” for TS set to 1, some other parts to 2.

856×616 230 KB

As you can see, smoothing groups are also used (shaded view, ignore the blurry preview texture):

722×510 90.9 KB

These are the 3DS export settings I use:

695×380 9.44 KB

After the import in UE4, the mesh looks like this (wireframe):

870×595 307 KB

It looks like TurboSmooth process didn’t happen at all, the polygon count is the same as before. Also the smoothing groups didn’t make it to UE4 as everything looks very blocky:

The static mesh editor also gives these numbers:


(Same number of polygons as before).

I have to say that I’m still not very experienced in 3DS Max, so maybe this is a simple misconfiguration? Did anyone have the same problem?

What could be the problem here? Did I something wrong?

2

Hi ,

If you have “Turbosmooth” checked this will keep the modifier from being collapsed to your mesh in the FBX. This will allow the modifier to still be accessible if you import it into another scene in Max or Maya for instance.

If you uncheck this, it will be collapsed and you will not have access to undo the turbosmooth if you import into another Max or Maya scene.

So, you can collapse this down before exporting or you can just choose to uncheck that option and it will collapse it down for the FBX that is imported into UE4.

The smoothing groups not being there is probably because they’re not properly setup on the base mesh that has not used turbo smooth.

Let me know if that helps,

3

Hi ,

many thanks, I really got this one wrong.
Tried it as you suggested and 5 minutes later the model was working in UE4 :slight_smile: