Twinmotion has come a long way in recent years, and it’s great to see the progress. However, for its intended AEC market, there are still quite a few usability gaps that make day-to-day work more difficult than it needs to be, especially when dealing with large datasets and complex models.
This feedback is based on Twinmotion 2024.1.2. We’re currently unable to use the latest version because we’re working in Unreal Engine 5.4, and the versions need to stay matched, which unfortunately locks us into a specific Twinmotion release. That in itself is quite restrictive.
Here are a few key issues and requests (apologies if any of these have been addressed in newer versions):
1. No List View for Materials or Imported Models
In AEC workflows, you often end up with dozens (or hundreds) of materials, concrete this, steel that, etc. Having to click on each object just to see its material name in the details panel is a huge time sink. The thumbnails often don’t provide enough visual info, and a list view would be far more efficient.
This is especially problematic with Datasmith imports, where the thumbnail is essentially useless, but seeing the full name is critical.
Below is an example image of this, you can’t tell which material is called which quickly.
2. Select All Assets with the Same Material
This is a big one. In large projects, it’s often necessary to isolate or review all assets with a specific material (e.g., all concrete pillars). Right now, the only way to do this is by manually clicking each asset or scrolling through the scene graph, which is painful when dealing with hundreds of items.
Even worse, once you’ve made that selection, there’s no way to save it unless you move everything into a container, which breaks the original hierarchy. For example, if you want to select all concrete pillars across three floors, you can’t group them without disrupting the floor-based structure.
3. Viewing Assigned Materials
Currently, the only way to check what material an object has is to use the eyedropper tool, which selects the material instead of just displaying it. Most standard software lets you view this info directly when an asset is selected, Twinmotion should too.
4. No Way to Organise Imports (Unless Added to Library)
There’s no native way to organise imported assets unless you add them to the library, which isn’t always desirable. A simple folder system would go a long way, this is the most basic of basic functionalitys.
5. Limited way to orginise assets in the scene
There really needs to be a tagging or grouping option for scene objects. Relying on containers is not powerful enough for anything beyond very simple projects. Especially when you work on bigger productions where a pipeline or heiarchy system is established and needs to be followed.
5. Merge Materials on Import – Needs More Flexibility
The “merge materials on import” feature is powerful, but sometimes you don’t want to use it until after making edits. Right now, the only workaround is to export as Datasmith and reimport with merging enabled. Having a toggle or post-import option would be much more user-friendly.
Would love to hear if any of this has been improved in the latest version, or if others have found workarounds. Twinmotion has great potential, but these kinds of workflow blockers really slow things down for AEC users.