Base meshes / updates / workflow help

Development World Creation
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#1

Hi everyone, Im new to the Ue4, getting to grips with things as time goes by. - but I have my first question.

Im trying to create a city scene…certainly nothing new here.

I will mesh out all the roads/kerbs etc in 3dmax, then import this to unreal, this will be my total physical space to then go ahead in UE4 to create everything else I need.

however. - Once I start this process (adding cracks in road/overlays etc etc) - and I decide i want to update the base mesh (roads/kerbs etc) - will that break everything I have done? or is it as simple as I can re-visit the base mesh in my model program and export it under the same parameters each time and UE4 will update it?

Or perhaps none of the above is a good idea at all, and maybe you suggest doing it modular instead?

All this is overwhelming at the moment, so sorry for the newish question.

Hopefully one of you experts out there can assist me on this.
Thanks so much
A

#2

Hi, when you rightclick on your mesh there is an option “Reimport”. That will reimport that mesh and you will break no connections it just gets updated.

And I would recommend that you build your city modular cause its

  1. easier to build (you can reuse the parts) and you can construct quite much that looks different with quite less modular parts
  2. If its not modular it will never be culled and all the textures will stay in your memory (every object that is not in your view will not be rendered (unless you use instance static meshes), but if you have one big mesh, then the whole mesh will be processed if only one small part of it is in the view).

And you could look at the “ModularBuildingSet” in the permanently free collection of the unreal engine marketplace.