How do I import 3D models from 3DS MAX into UE4 at same locations? I need to import parts of 3D models into UE4. For example, I’m creating 3D model of a city and it has buildings, streets, ground, etc. I need to import buildings, streets, and ground separately into UE4 at the same locations as in 3DS MAX. If a building is located at coordinates of 1500, 2500, 0 in 3DS MAX, the building should be located at coordinates of 1500, 2500, 0 in UE4.
you could set the origin of the buildings to 0,0,0 in max but for large areas i wouldn’t advise it, best option atm is to take notes of where each building is and just set these when you build your map in UE4
Or make script for max that saves orginal (in max) coordinates of building then saves this to t3d file.
Snaps building to 0,0,0 in max, exports it as fbx.
Then in unreal you import all FBX, just make sure they have same names after importing as they had in max. Ie. watch for unreal adding filename prefix.
Last step is copy paste text from t3d file into level. All meshes should be place correctly.
Just a day of scripting, if its less than a day of copying numbers from application to application i would do script, else just copy paste.
PS. to see t3d text format make level drop few building meshes, then copy paste that all into text editor. You should have template for t3d file.
I made some maxscripts exactly for that purpose:
There’s another tool that someone else made in the same section of the forums that you can use as well.
Here’s a very early beta version of my driving game. I had to create 21 groups of buildings in 3DS MAX and set their pivot points to 0,0,0 before exporting the building to FBX files and importing them into UE4. It took me almost a year to create 3D model of the city.
This might help
I’ll be doing a series on setting up a 3ds Max to UE4 source chain but overall you can move assets back and forth along the same asset chain.