Brush manipulation / Static Mesh manipulation

Development Asset Creation
1

Hello, Community/Developers!

I have skimmed the docs for info but did not find the information I am looking for… That being said, here are my inquiries:

1st: When it comes to editing a builder brush via “Geometry Mode”, I find the options to be very limited. I am mainly referring to the ability to add a “Loop Subdivide” (aka loop cut) (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Modeling/Meshes/Editing/Subdividing/Loop_Subdivide) to the brush for more robust editing options. Is this option already present in the current build of the editor? If so, how can I activate/find it?

2nd: Are there plans to have an** in-editor 3D modeling solution**? I think it would be b****y brilliant to have the ability to create 3D models/static meshes directly within the editor. Without the need to import the content from external sources, I believe it would benefit the workflow/pipeline tremendously. I know this may be beyond the scope of UE4, but just curious to see what the thoughts are on this subject.

3rd: Reading the forums, I find a decent percentage of the community is “building on a budget”. With that being said, most of them have resorted to using Blender as their 3D modeling software due to its awesome cost and licenses! :wink: Now my question is, will there be more support for Blender in the future? I am mainly referring to A.R.T. (Animation and Rigging Toolkit in UE4 - Unreal Engine). I know that it is designed for Autodesk Maya, but will there be such a plugin for Blender (considering it is open source)? And if A.R.T. will not be available for Blender, is Blender’s “Rigify” system (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Rigging/Rigify) compatible within the UE4 pipeline?

Any information will be cherished immensely!
Thank you for providing such amazing software!
You guys have done a wonderful job putting UE4 together, and I cannot wait to see where this is headed! :wink:

Best regards,
Matt

2

I have successfully imported static as well as animated meshes from Blender into UE4 using FBX Export.

Some things to take into account:

  1. Change Blender units to centimeters as that’s what UE4 is using.
  2. All your bones must have “Deform” checked.
  3. Any mesh with UVs needs two sets of UVs, one that can go out of bounds (the first one) and a second that must be within bounds as it will be used to bake the lightmaps in UE4.
  4. When exporting rigged & animated meshes, make sure to scale them up in Blender if it complains about bone sizes when importing in UE4.
  5. You need at least one bone called “root” and at least 3 bones in your armature.
  6. You might need to edit the FBX Export script and comment out two lines to prevent it from exporting an additional “root” bone but this isn’t game breaking or anything. (I saw this somewhere and changed mine, don’t remember where though)
  7. When importing animations in UE4, you need to check Import Animation and type the animation (action) in there, I find it weird that you can only import one, I have yet to attempt importing an armature with more than one action assigned to it but my guess is that I need to type all the animations into that text box separated by commas or something like that.
  8. Blender exports outdated FBX files so I always run them through “Autodesk FBX Converter 2013” as that will update the FBX version and might fix some problems. (the tool is free)

But yeah, seeing some official support would be nice. And Rigify should work.

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Awesome, thank you for this information! I personally do not use Blender; was just curious on behalf of the community. do you know if the default Rigify naming convention is compatible? Or will they have to rename the bones to work with UE4? I remember reading documentation on UDK (if my memory serves me correctly) were they had to rename the bones so UDK will recognize them. Is this the case with UE4?

Matt