This is a method that I personally use for creating props like Rocks or any form of Sculpts that is needed for a level, for which these are a few steps I follow:
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I personally use blender to lay out the foundation for the blockout which is generally a cube, and the scale up to match it relative to the mannequin, or you can bring a reference size object directly from the engine inside of blender.
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There is an add-on called GOB (Similar to GOZ) for Blender that directly links Blender to ZBrush or vice-versa.
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Use Trim Dynamics, Trim Smooth Boarder, Orb brushes (free), and clay tubes for the detailed pass of the rock. Its better to use dynamesh to have more flexibility.
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Once you’re done with the detailed pass, duplicate it and decimate it using Decimation master.
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For a beginner, they might be curious how on earth they would unwrap a mesh after decimation which is entirely triangulated, the answer to that is inside of Blender, you can go to edge mode, hold down ctrl and consecutively click on edge and it will select it for you without any hassle. Keep in mind to create the least number of seams else during baking you’ll loss a lot of texel density for the very small UV islands. Another way of unwrapping your traingulated mesh is using RizomUV.
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Once you’re done with UV unwrap, bake the high poly onto this low poly/ mid poly mesh using your favorite baking software (Substance/Marmoset/XNormal, etc.). 2K resolution bakes are a good starting point to save up on your memory while giving you quite a lot of details.
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Bring the decimated model (Low poly/Mid poly) to UE 5 and check on Build Nanite on the pop-up menu.
That’s it! You have successfully created your first prop for your level.
Next up, Creating textures and setting up shaders for your prop.
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