I am just wondering what is the best practice is for creating structures in UE4? Should I build my structure in Blender or the basics in UE4 then add the details with Blender? Any help would be great thanks I have been looking for tutorial but nothing seems to answer the question. The structure in mind is medium size and players can enter it. Thanks
The BSP tools in UE for building objects are optimized around being able to quickly ‘rough in’ a shape so you can start to see how the level might play. Think of them as prototyping tools - you can block shapes in quickly and adjust them on the fly. Once you get your blocking done however, it’s best to build your actual geometry in Blender or whatever 3D package you choose. I tend to break down whatever I am building into parts. If it’s a house I may build each wall and roof as separate parts. This helps for a number of reasons: I can move and swap things around in the engine easily, Texturing becomes easier, and it can in some cases be more efficient to render.
There’s a really good content example in the files that ship with UE that shows the progression from basic blocking to a finished level - check that out for a better idea of a good workflow.
Thanks! So just to clarify you make the basic structure with the BSP tool and then you model the harder details in the 3D modelling program of my choice? If so that’s great thanks for information!
BSP isn’t really optimized for use in your final game so aim for totally replacing most BSP brushes with geometry that you model in Blender. BSP is just a nice way to ‘sketch’ in a rough outline to playtest before going to the trouble of modeling something that ends up being the wrong size/layout. It’s a lot faster to throw up some basic level geometry in BSP brushes and make sure it’s all blocked out than it is to model something in blender, import it and THEN realize it’s the wrong scale/layout. The brushes can be your ‘blueprint’ for what you end up modeling in Blender ultimately.
Thanks makes a lot of sense, I hate to be a pain but can I ask what poly count I should use when I’m ready to import my models, just been taking a look through the documentation and I can’t find a straight answer? Thanks been great help 
The caveat here is I’m pretty new at the realtime engine side of this, but it seems that polycount not the end all be all that it once was. The short answer is ‘it depends’. In general, UE4 is tremendous at slinging around a ton of poly’s. Definitely don’t be afraid to use polygons where they are needed. Obviously you don’t want to be wasteful, and you still want to be as efficient as you can, but it seems like poly budget is now part of a much bigger picture in terms of how complex the overall scene is, how complex your shaders are, what the draw distance is like, etc.