I thought I’d create a teaser trailer of a story I’m working on as a way to learn UE5 for animation.
I’m a CAD designer by my original trade, so I’m doing the modeling in Solidworks and moving it over to UE5 with datasmith. I have that figured out, I created my attic where most of the video will take place.
I’m now working on my first and probably most complex set piece, a steam train.
I have gotten it to come into UE as a single mesh but need to split out the sub meshes for wheels and drive gear. And I’ve also brought it in as group of separate meshes but they need to be tied together somehow to put in bones to get it to move.
I plan to just have it move in a straight line so that I need not work out all the articulation of the various trucks, I do want to do a closeup of the driving gear, including the Walschaerts valve gear that allows you to adjust the steam valve timing. In broader shots I plan to have a simpler version with just the main and connecting rods on the wheels.
Here I’m running it through its paces by turning a wheel in SolidWorks.
I had hoped to do it all in UE5. I know it is a tall order and maybe I should start with somethign simpler, but everything else that moves is pretty much going to be people, which as a mechanical engineer seems harder to me than rigid bodies that just move relative to one another.
Is this even possible in UE engine, or do I need to learn something like Blender and push it there first to rig it? It means learning another program beyond what I planned to do, and UE has a better UI than Blender.
Another issue I’m having is tutorials I find on youtube never seem to bother telling you what plugin you must turn on to do what they do. Very hard to figure it out. I’m still not sure I’ve turned on the right one to do mesh manipulations that I need to do. I’m not seeing the options I see in the video when I click my edit tools button.
I’d appreciate some thoughts and opinions on what I’m trying to do.