Importing My UE4 Mesh from DDO w/ Maps - Confused

Hi guys, I’m a student learning (and enjoying I might add).

I’m a bit lost admist my sick haze which isn’t helping matters. I’ve made an asset, a pillar in my instance and textured this appropritaely in NdO and DdO.

I’ve then gone back to my low poly in Maya and exported this as a .FBX as to my knowledge you can’t use the .OBJ in UE4 which you use for 3DO with the Quixel Suite.

I’ve got all of these and all of my maps into the content browser.

Here ensues the problem. I’m fairly lost as to how to tie these together - the model looks nowhere close to it’s intended design, i’m 99% the maps aren’t hooking up properly. I’ve tinkered with the material nodes but I’m honestly not sure how to go about resolving this.

Usually I’d have just had this fixed in session but I’m considerably ill atm and my teachers are busy, well… teaching funnily enough ha.

Here are the maps in question: -

Albedo
Specular
Normal
Roughness

I’ve also baked out: -

Curvature
Object Spaced Normal (doubt I need this but done it regardless)

I was honestly expecting these to be fairly automated at detecting / attaching the map types so any help I can get here would be appreciated (along with node settings if they’re specific).

Now here is how the pillar is intended to look: -

Thanks in advance!

Doesn’t DDO have presets for UE4 now? For a basic model with UE4 you just need a albedo/diffuse/base color (they are all basically the same thing), a roughness map, and a normal map. If you have a mix of metals and non metals you’ll need a metalness map as well, but otherwise that can be a constant 1 or 0. Don’t mess with a specular texture or value unless you need to, leaving it unused is more physically correct when you are trying to make something match the real world.

Yeah the presets it gave me for the above model were albedo/spec/rough/normal - haven’t got a clue regarding a metalness map. The bronze used in the above model is a smart material present from DDO. Didn’t really expect to run into any problems with that.

Yep DDO have preset for UE4, Worgage you have to use it :wink:

Then you will have 4 maps: albedo, metallic, roughness and normal map:

Keep in mind the roughness map is the inverse of the gloss map (the more it is black the more the surface is smooth)…in UE4, keep the roughness and the metallic as linear state (no RGB for these maps).
Also, take care of the normal map, in the UE4 engine, the normal map has to be inverted (i mean take care of the green channel). Make some test in the editor with a light if you are not sure…sometimes you will see the up/bottom direction of the light (green channel) are inverted.

Enjoy!

Thanks for the help.

I won’t lie I’m brand new to DDO and actually applying the numerous maps. I have them simply because DDO is generating them for me on the fly.

I used the UE4 preset when exporting however it’s only generated Albedo, Normal, Roughness and a Specular.

If I’ve not selected the UE4 preset when I created the new project is there any way to generate a metalness one from here? And would this be plugged into the specular (and replace the specular) I assume?

I assume the metalness is what’s missing for my bronze to be coming out like it is in the above images?

Much appreciate the responses!

You have to select the UE4 preset at the beginning to have the right maps. Re-do it :wink: When i am talking about the UE4 preset, i am not talking about the options at the end for exporting your final texture maps…see the screenie joined above (base creator) :wink:

Super, I’ve just gone back into my DDO project.

It allowed me to add a properly generated metalness map.

I guess from here I’ll export that individual map and try plugging it into the spec in UE4.

Fingers crossed!

Also, how do I edit the RGB values of said maps in the UE4 engine to ensure nothing else is wrong?

Don’t worry, it will work :wink:

For the roughness and metalness map, you uncheck use ‘sRGB’ in the texture property pannel ;)…and read the doc :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: !!

Thanks. However, still problems.

I’ve attached the new metallic map and unchecked sRGB of the roughness and metalness. Things seem worse, as you can see in the screenshot (updated settings also included)

I read the doc, just rushing like mad for a deadline and having a coughing fit whilst I do it, yay!

It could perhaps be something to do with my normal: ‘Also, take care of the normal map, in the UE4 engine, the normal map has to be inverted (i mean take care of the green channel). Make some test in the editor with a light if you are not sure…sometimes you will see the up/bottom direction of the light (green channel) are inverted.’

Not entirely sure how to go about that.

Don’t connect a specular map.

The Specular input should not be connected and left as its default value of 0.5 for most cases.

It is value between 0 and 1 and is used to scale the current amount of specularity on non-metallic surfaces. It has no effect on metals.

For the normal map, the enlightened surfaces of the green channel must point to the bottom.

Arf !! :wink:

Alright, for the record how would I make sure the surfaces of the green channel point down?

Thanks for the help, you drew my attention to the fact I wasn’t using the correct UE4 presets, as such I didn’t a) have a metallic map and b) had the wrong Albedo (noticed this myself when I saw that your screen grab said ‘AlbedoM’). So I wasn’t getting the metalness through that. Updated my material node and all is fine.

I’m sure it can be tweaked but it’s working wonders.

Thanks again

If you’re sure you need to do this, you can just open the normal map in Photoshop, select the green channel and Ctrl-I to invert it. :slight_smile:

Even easier: double-click your normal asset in the Content Browser, and look for the checkbox “Flip Green Channel”

Super, issue is resolved but all these things are good to know going forward.

Speed of work flow and not bumping into a stream of continuous issues as you learn is so important.

Many thanks for the responses.