Blender to Unreal Tools, Part 1 - February 6 - Live from HQ

[jamesbaber2]

@Rawalanche

I should have the latest version if the latest version is 1.4.13. I did the most rudimentary test possible. I have just installed the addon and did not change any default settings. I have just selected a single static mesh in Blender, and exported it to Unreal using the tool. The mesh is a building which has 4775x3460x2385 centimeters in Blender, and ends up being size of 47x34x23 centimeters in Unreal.

**Rawalanche **the most basic test you can do is to send over the defualt cube. 2m = 200cm

There are multiple factors in your blend file or unreal project that could produce the results you are seeing. I suggest starting with a clean .blend and unreal project and using that to retrace your steps.

@Rawalanche

Aside from incorrect scale, also the forward axis is incorrect. Blender’s forward axis is -Y where as Unreal’s is +X.

There are some suggested solutions to the axis issues that you can find by other users on the github
https://github.com/EpicGames/BlenderTools/issues/63

@Rawalanche

Let’s say I work on a robot and a tree in Blender. I certainly want to have tree meshes in completely different location in content folder structure than the robot parts.

Check out this issue. It should address that
https://github.com/EpicGames/BlenderTools/issues/183

@Rawalanche

Is the end user workflow really intended to be that the user keeps going deep in the addon preferences every single time they work on a different asset to change the global export path?

There is an issue for creating an alternate settings dialog so you don’t have to dig into the preferences.
https://github.com/EpicGames/BlenderTools/issues/25

@Rawalanche

These paths are unique to assets, so they should obviously be saved as the .blend file property, not as a global addon preference.

Also the settings are global until saved, then they are loaded from the .blend file scene data, so you can save settings into .blends just like you are saying.

@Rawalanche

The main point of having any kind of “bridge” tool is to address exactly these issues. So that user doesn’t have to mess with cryptic FBX settings to find the right combination, both on Blender’s end and Unreal’s end. This is the absolute opposite of what should be done. The point of having some sort of bridge exporter is that these things are sorted out for us. It should be one click always works solution.

And as much as we would all love a one click button, that is not realistic. There are quite a few use cases for different fbx export/import scenarios, that is why they are available to the user.

@Rawalanche

I do not understand how this could pass any QA testing.

Also just want to clarify that this is a free addon that we released to the community, there is no QA other than the community. This is a project that relies on contributions from the community. The tools are still very young, and we are not able to contribute a lot of dev hours to these tools, because we have other internal projects our developers need to work on. We do however welcome PRs from people who are interested in improving the tools.

At the end of the day, if you find value in the tools, use them. If you don’t, than don’t. Also if you have other questions, please look through existing issues, or open a new issue on the github. I monitor that more often, and there are other users on there who can help you too.