Hey there all, newbie UE4 developers here, just started learning the ropes.
As I understand it, animations have to be made with a separate modeling/animation program (like Maya) and imported as FBX files into UE4.
Right now my son and I have full Modo 6.01 licenses (and changing to 2 Maya licenses is going to be some serious $$$.)
Is anyone currently using Modo 6.01 to do your meshes, skeletons and animations, successfully importing them into UE4?
I found a video showing someone using Modo (a version later than 6.01 that supports FBX 2013 export) and the ACS (automatic character setup) plugin to go all the way from a mesh and skeleton to an animation that is pulled into UE4 successfully. There’s no audio, but at least you can watch the screen carefully and see the steps.
I guess I’m just curious if the ACS and Modo 8.01 are both absolutely necessary. It would be nice to be able to just use 6.01 and not pay $1000 to upgrade our licenses. (The ACS plugin apparently works with 6.01, 7.01 and 8.01, and is only $150, but with 6.01 we can only export to FBX 2006.11.)
As a side note, we also have a one full Zbrush license and two Lightwave 10 licenses, and we downloaded Blender. Surely we have SOMETHING here that will work without buying Maya?
If anyone has any comments I would greatly appreciate it.
yes you can model, texture, rig and animate in blender, although I personally only make a basic plain texture in blender then use GIMP to add the details.
This could really help things along if for some reason UE4 doesn’t like my older flavor of FBX.
I’m doing some digging on using Blender with UE4. I wouldn’t mind modeling on Modo and exporting to Blender to take advantage of its up and coming better integration with UE4.
Hopefully Luxology will get on the stick and update 8.01 to import/export flawlessly with UE4 in the future. If that happens, its upgrade time, as Modo is my prefered 3D tool at the moment.
Yeah, my son and I learned on LightWave too, and we love Modo. My son bought Zbrush on the advice of Feng Zhu, and its retopology capabilities are nothing short of magical, but Modo still shines in so many areas.
Joviex, do you use Modo to rig and animate and import to UE4, or do you mostly model with it?
I’m trying to find anyone besides Pavel (the gentlemen who made the Modo/ACS youtube video tutorial) that acutally uses Modo to rig and animate.
I’m going to try to post on the Modo forums and see if there are any UE4 developers there using Modo. I’ll post back what I find.
EDIT:
I found the gentleman who made the demo video in my first post above, and he’s done a few more animations, including a VERY good animation that just begs a Jack Sparrow skin (lol).
Here’s a post from the foundry forums (which includes a link to his Modo-UE4 tutorial):
Though I haven’t tried it yet myself, I’ve heard that animations made with Auto Character Setup (ACS) worked ok in UE4 as well.
I forget if ACS works with v601 but it may help simplify making your char anims if you have access to it.
I’m looking forward to any improvements between MODO and UE4 as well, have to wait and see what happens.
