Even though I selected to Import Rhino Meshes and UVs. Dataprep process is ignoring it.
In a result I receive objects without any Edge Softening
I’m using the newest Datasmith plugin.
Problems with imports from Rhino span many years now!
I’m referencing to the .3dm file, if I import .udatasmith then i got softened meshes, problem is it’s not always convenient to export .udatasmith files. For example I might export only some selected geometries to the .3dm file, I can’t do that with .udatasmith because it exports everything in 3D view.
It seems the edge softening is mainly a render feature in Rhino and is not in the parametric representation. So not exported inside the 3dm.
On this link they say you can run a ExtractRenderMesh command to get Rhino to export the render mesh Edge softening doesn't work - #5 by sochin - Rhino for Windows - McNeel Forum
It’s still broken with 5.4 and it’s not even working with .udatasmith files as it used to in some time in the past. You point to the 9-year-old thread on the forum, a lot can change in the 9 years.
Again, it was working with the .udatasmith files. I have a perspective on this integration development spanning years now and I must say that you do a really bad job.
Extract render meshes is not a solution because it breaks the connection between objects and it’s a wrong way to do it.
I doubt there is anyone that care about this connection, but if you do, we got Rhino 8 now and you should update your info about what is possible so maybe finally you can provide a good quality product.
What versions of Rhino, Unreal Editor and Datasmith exporter are you using?
FYI, I did successful export of a cube with soft edges using datasmith:
with rhino 7, datasmith 5.3.2 and UE 5.4 P1
with rhino 7, datasmith 5.2.1 and UE 5.3.2
We are yet to update the plugin for Rhino8 and check that nothing has changed regarding the udatasmith export.
I did a test of export selected, and you have an option to export only selected part in datasmith, not only in 3dm.
It does not look like rhino export the parametric surfaces with modifiers applied on it. The soft edge settings seems to be in a metadata that Rhino reused when re-opening the model. UE does not have functionality to apply a bevel on those parametric surface.
In the case of parametric surface import, UE will tessellate what is provided and does not have function to apply bevel on surfaces .
In the case of mesh surface, UE will import what is in the file. It looks like Rhino exports a render mesh but without modifiers applied on it. So there are no soft edges in the mesh to be read by UE.
I am reaching out to McNeel to see if it is an option missing on export, or something not setup properly in the way we read the 3dm, or if they just do not export that information.
Currently the solutions are:
udatasmith (that seemed to work in my tests),
export to another file format that is “mesh only” to force Rhino to export the render mesh
call the function “extract the render mesh” and save that duplicated object in a 3dm file.
I asked McNeel: the modifiers information is stored in 3dm. However 3dm only store the render mesh without modifiers applied. Rhino compute the modified render mesh at runtime.
So UE would have to add a function to read the modifiers information and modify render meshes on import. Users should not expect that as this is considered low priority and not on the roadmap. Please use one of the alternative solutions mentioned above.
