How to import Maya files unto Unreal Engine 4

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hey guys.

I searched on the web and found nothing about the importing of assets from Maya (2014) to UE 4. Can someone tell me in simple words how can I do that?

PS: I don’t even know what is the right extension;
PS²: The Mesh that I want to export is static. Its not a character or something like that.
PS³: If the importing process is complex, can someone guide me how to reach the final result that I expect? I mean, if is not just “press here and there”, please, at least try to enlighten me.

Thanks in advance.

2

first do you have the FBX exporter?
Second, there are plenty of videos on HOW to export virtually any and all meshes to almost any engine in youtube or digital tutors.

3
  1. Create the mesh
  2. Export it as a .fbx (make sure that you use the 2013 version of the fbx exporter -> you can choose that in the export window)
  3. Open the Unreal Engine 4 and click onto import
  4. Choose your mesh, change some properties (e.g when you have lods, then you also have to enable “import lods”) and then import it
  5. Now save your textures that you have used for the mesh as a png/tga file
  6. Import them
4

FBX is the guy? Okay, I just need it to do this exporting/importing?

If so, ok, that’s all.

Thanks in advance.

5

Yep, fbx is the right file format. Of course you have to do some other stuff before you can go into the export/import process -> e.g 2nd uv channel, lods, collisions,…

6

REMEMBER… GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND…

://cgi.tutsplus/tutorials/maya-to-udk-importing-static-meshes-using-actorx-fbx–cg-16015

The same concept works.

7

Try reading the documentation, that’s what it’s there for!

8

I’m the VP of Epic Games. I just wanted to thank you for those great YouTube videos you’ve made on Unreal Engine 4! Thanks for doing them in both English and German!

It’s so cool to see stuff like this appearing so quickly!

I love how our community is growing leaps and bounds by the hour!

9

No problem :wink: Even more videos will follow in the next few days (currently get flooded with tutorial requests and I try my best to fulfill most of them :D).

10

do i do the same if i want to import a file from wings 3d to unreal engine?

11

Yep, it nearly works the same for every 3d program -> just make sure that you export it as a fbx file + that you have uv mapped your mesh/enables export smoothing groups/… :slight_smile:

12

Although this is an old post, it came up on google when I was searching for exporting files from Maya into Unreal in the right way. In fact, I want to point out that Maya (2017) has a built-in tool to export directly into Unreal. Hope this will help.

13

Does this include proper camera exports? World scale differences? World rotation? I’m just starting to look into this, it seems it doesn’t do any of these things (Maya 2018) by default… a bit weird if so but not surprised. :confused:

14

I will tell you now to save you tons of time, and issues… Its important to assign your materials prior to mesh/combine. I name my materials. Not phong, or lambert. Select all mesh with object tool, and goto edit/delete all by type/history, and also non deformer history before exporting anything to unreal. Once thats out of the way. Drop down the file menu, and you should see " send to unreal. " Use the fbx format as listed, and your axis will be automatically corrected. Once in the engine simply click import. If youve never used this function before maya will have created a folder in your ue4 project titled import. Navingate to your unreal project and open the content folder. You should find your import folder, and fbx file. Simply select your fbx and your done.

15

Hey @thadkinsjr , thank you for your response.

The funny thing is: I just started working with Unreal again and needed some tips on saving time and coincidentally you gave me exactly what I want! :smiley:

Now, to the others: thank you for all your support so far.